leaving london again

April 2, 20261 Comment

Here are the last few from my trip to Europe last summer, starting with the sketch drawn on the flight home. It’s like if I don’t sketch on the flight now I can’t tell if I flew or not. It does relax me on the flight though, helps pass the time rather than watch some silly movie, which I do anyway. This particular flight took off late, which is always fun as I love airports so much. This was the last page of that Moleskine sketchbook I really didn’t like much; you can see a few paint swatches from the Aquarius Watercolours that I got at the Symposium, plus a few others I was trying out there. I was definitely ready to go home by this point though, real life was calling, and as much as I love London it was starting to get on my nerves. I had a 5k race to run the next morning in Davis too (the Labor Day Run; I did pretty well too), and it was super nice to be back in Davis, back to routine, back to my own bed. There were a couple of sketches from my last Saturday morning in London though, as I decided to jump on the tube and head down to Oxford Circus for some very last minute shopping. I went to Liberty’s, they had their Christmas stuff up already (it was August!), and then found the Oasis ‘Live 25’ pop-up shop and bought some merch, and a nice black Adidas long sleeve shirt. I then sketched the church with the very pointy steeple just past the top of Regent Street, All Soul’s Langham Place. I remember years ago, when I was an open-top-bus tour-guide, we’d go past this and I’d say it was the sharpest pointiest church in London. It was designed by John Nash, who built Regent Street and also a lot of the buildings around here that date from the Regency period. You could say he suffered from Regency Bias. (Damn, I wish I had said that on my tour).

Then I walked down Mortimer Street, and started a sketch of the buildings below, which caught my eye. I started drawing the windows, and outlines, but then decided it would have to be finished later as I needed to get the tube back to Burnt Oak, as I was going up to Watford with my mum. So I walked down towards Goodge Street; as I was about to cross Charlotte street, one of those guys on a delivery e-bike zipped in front of me, Deliveroo, having jumped the red light. I said instinctively “he just went through a red light,” and went on with crossing the road. But the bike man stopped, and yelled back at me, “yeah does it bother you?” I was a bit shocked but he kept yelling that at me. I responded yes it bothers me, you went through a light as I was crossing the road. Anyway I kept walking down Goodge Street. Next thing I know, he is right behind me, on the pavement on his bike, saying “I’m following you on the pavement now too does that bother you?” He was pretty aggressive, and started to threaten me and ride in front of me. After telling him to leave me alone he kept on, to the point where I realized he wants an argument here and probably more, so I just decided to ignore him completely, and walked around the back of his bike and across the street. I could hear him still when I turned into Goodge Street. I was a bit shaken about it, but not much, maybe I should have reported it to the delivery company but what’s the point in that. There had been so many times going around central London where those bloody e-bike delivery guys have cut in front of me as I’m crossing the road, it’s dangerous, and there are some not very nice people with tendencies towards aggressive behaviour out there. I got on the tube and back up to Burnt Oak.

After a month away, I was ready to get back home, and I was so done with London for now. I love London and won’t have people knocking it, but it can be exhausting and I’m often glad I don’t live and work there any more. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of those e-bike delivery drivers, add that to the list, but you get them everywhere now. While it was sad to leave my London family, it was nice to get back home to my California family, and do that 5k run while still jetlagged (easy peasy). Anyway a week later I would be off again to San Francisco to see Supergrass play, and then, though I did not know this at the time, flying off to Los Angeles to see Oasis. I’ll save all that for another post…

JFK to PHX to SMF

June 9, 20251 Comment

And so we ended the Spring Break trip to DC (the nation’s capital) and New York (the real capital) (yeah I know, New York isn’t even the capital of New York) (it’s a bit like explaining that Harry Kane was not the captain of Spurs, that being Hugo Lloris, despite being England captain). We flew from JFK in, ahem, first class. Yep, through the magic of airline points we managed to get a deal that got really good seats in first class all the way back home. Well, all the way to Phoenix, and then another short flight but those seats were nice too. These ones however had the little compartment with the massive screen and the lie-flat seats. No cushions or blankets though. It was strange to be seated at an angle on a plane. The attendant was very attentive (yeah don’t put your hand on my shoulder when asking me if I want a drink mate), though I did not know what to order, I felt I had to be fancy, but I just got a wine which I didn’t even finish. I sketched, watched Avengers: Infinity War, tried to sleep a little, basically it was like being on a plane but with more room. My teenager was there to my left watching some movie (Hunger Games maybe), I wish we had had a game of Battleships because that would have been perfect (you probably can’t play Battleships on a plane though). It was only my second time in first class, and mate, it’s hard to go back. But we only get a brief glimpse into life on the other side of the curtain, and then it’s over.

I did people-sketch at the airports, both JFK and PHX. I hate airports as you may know, and sitting around in departure lounges is slightly better than rushing about in corridors or going through security lines. I had done a lot of people sketches with that thick black pen on this trip so this was a good way to pass the time.

And finally, the last leg from Phoenix to Sacramento. It was late afternoon, nearly the evening, and we were all exhausted from the travel. I was watching Withnail and I, another classic. After watching Infinity War this was a change of scenery, but I imagined Uncle Monty and Thanos switching places, putting a new spin on his question “Are you a sponge or an infinity stone?” It was late, I was tired. I sketched to calm the old flying nerves, and slept well when we got home. I hope it’s not as long again until the next time I see New York, but I guess there’s only so much excitement I can take.

flying there and flying back, again

December 30, 20243 Comments

Two more times up in the sky, going to London and back to San Francisco. The first flight was more comfortable, better legroom and an empty seat next to me, though I still struggled to get decent sleep. I always have to sketch on the flight, it does calm me, and gives me something to do. The entertainment system is good, though I rarely watch things on it, other than the flight map. I do watch stuff on my iPad, mostly I listen to my iPod, podcasts, audiobooks, music. I was re-listening to Fellowship of the Ring on the flight over. I hate these long flights, but they have to be done, since I can’t teleport. These days, I land at Heathrow and get the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road, before taking the Northern Line up to Burnt Oak, it’s a long journey all in all. The flight back (below) I was really crammed in, a full flight with very little legroom. I chose to sit in the middle (nobody moving past me to get up, like at the window seat) but it really felt squashed. On this flight though I was able to bring back my old guitar from London, and it didn’t cost me any extra, and just went into the overhead bins above other people’s bags (it’s pretty thin). I still had to draw, and in fact these flights back are also an opportunity to catch up on the sketches I didn’t get finished during the trip. So I spent a lot of time drawing, squashing in my elbows. It was a long flight, I was thinking about all I’d done, people I’d seen, people I’d not been able to see. It was nice spending a bit more time with my Mum. Unfortunately my Dad was in hospital for most of the time I was back, wasn’t doing too well, so I’m glad I was able to be there, it’s difficult being so far away. I started watching a film called ‘Hampstead’ which my Mum had started watching a couple of days before, and it looked ok, but actually was really dull so I turned it off. I don’t remember what else I watched, some Drive to Survive. I started reading a new book I’d bought, written by an old friend from university whose book signing I’d been to. My bag was full of mince pies and other food goodies for Christmas; I could have brought so much more back if I had the room. Anyway, bookends to another trip back home.

sacramento to kahului (and back)

January 9, 2024January 9, 2024Leave a comment

We flew over the Pacific to the Hawaiian island of Maui just after Christmas, for our festive tropical new year break. That was amazing. We did have to get up super early in the morning to get to the airport and catch our 7am plane, which we did (though Sacramento airport was very busy), and had dramatic skies as the sun was coming up. We flew on a Boeing 737-Max-8, blissfully unaware of the problems that the Max-9 would have a week later when part of one came off shortly after take-off. Yeah let’s not think about that scary situation. As Superman says, flying is still the safest way to travel. Easy for him to say. Still the view was beautiful. I always have to do a bit of drawing when I fly, it helps me relax. Looking out of the window I tried to capture the colours and textures of the sky in my little Fabriano Venezia book.

It’s nearly six hours from Sacramento to Kahului, the main airport on Maui. Maui is a beautiful place, though it has suffered a lot in 2023 with devastating fires, namely the terrifying disaster than befell the historic capital Lahaina. I sketched there in 2019, when we visited on New Year’s Eve. While the buildings were destroyed, the historic Banyan Tree has survived, albeit terribly damaged. We were going to stay in Wailea, where we stayed on that previous trip, on the south-western part of Maui. We flew out with Southwest, and on the way we were able to watch the Tottenham game against Brighton & Hove Albion. Should win that right? We lost 4-2, and we were 4-0 down when we landed, so there was a little bit more Norf London Language than usual on this flight. (We made up for it by beating Bournemouth a few days later, but seriously, we were ravaged by injuries and suspensions).

I have a few Maui sketches to post, I wasn’t going to do a lot of sketching what with being in the ocean and the pool and playing my ukulele by the sea, but you know I can’t help myself. I’ll post those later. Below is the sketch from the flight home, this was the flight on the 737-Max-8 (I can’t remember what the plane was going out there, it wasn’t a Max-8 or 9), and they have a handy little tray that pops down where you can clamp in your phone or iPad to watch things on there, a very handy feature. It would still get sucked out if the window fell off though. I don’t think I watched much, a couple of episodes of ‘Marvel’s What If’, mostly just listened to podcasts and sketched, this time in that brown fountain pen. Buy the time we got home it was raining hard in the Sacramento valley, and a lot colder than the mid-80s of Maui. Happy New Year!

“cause I just wanna fly”

July 29, 2023July 28, 2023Leave a comment

Ok, I’ll start posting the sketches from my recent trip to England and Scotland (“Britain” as we call it, for the time being anyway). Let’s start with the bookend airplane sketches. You would think that I would be incredibly bored of drawing these views by now, and you’d be right, I am bored of drawing these views. Yet I still draw them, because when I fly I need something to relax me, and that is drawing my surroundings. I could watch some stupid film on the seat-back monitor, and get interrupted by the captain who wants to tell us very slowly that we can buy some useless duty-free rubbish from the flight attendants if we want, or maybe to not tell us about a pocket of upcoming turbulence that will make the plane suddenly plummet god-knows-how-many-hundreds-of-feet downwards towards Greenland (that happened on our flight back, and I’m still feeling it). I mostly just watch the map, to see where we are. I always download some things on my iPad to watch, mostly Get Back, but I don’t like to dive into watching something early on knowing that the flight crew will be serving us some marginally edible food an hour or so into the flight and I might miss out if I engrossed in watching my screen with headphones on. So I draw, it helps me calm my nerves a little. I do listen to a lot of podcasts while on the plane, and audiobooks. I don’t actually mind flying, I just hate the airport experience, and if we are all cramped into a plane with no space, I hate that too. The sketch above was done on the way over on my iPad, we flew via Seattle for some reason, late at night, and I think I only managed an hour of sleep at best, total, we were so cramped. On these flights, I only recline my seat a little, as to go back the whole way is not very considerate to those seated behind you, who then cannot move much. Still when we landed we were excited about getting to London, seeing family again.

This second sketch is on the flight back (we were flying through LAX this time), when we were similarly squeezed in, and I was feeling pretty sick. About ten minutes into the flight, the young fellow in the seat in front decided that he needed to recline his seat the entire way. Not only did this give me zero room to be able to lean forward and get things from under my seat – physically impossible, and I’m of average height – but also made it impossible to see the seat-back screen which does not adjust any more, and impossible to put anything on my tray taller than a small plastic cup (not my bottle, certainly not my iPad), and if I wanted to read my magazine I would have to hold it close to my face (which let’s face it I have to do anyway these days, my eyesight is so bad). His girlfriend in the seta next to him only reclined half the way and my son (who is now almost as tall as me) had no problem. So I politely asked the guy if he would mind not reclining the whole way, but may just 50%? Nope, he didn’t want to do that. This was ten minutes out of Heathrow, we hadn’t eaten yet and the lights were definitely not turned off for sleepy-time mode. “It’s just I have no room if you put your seat back the whole way.” “You can put your seat back too,” he said. “But I don’t need to; it disrupts the person sat behind me, and it still doesn’t give me any more room to lean forward to get things from under the seat.” “It’s the same for everyone,” he said, refusing to budge or acknowledge my point, adding “the person in front of me has their seat back,” which I could see was not in fact true. “Mate this ain’t a game of dominoes,” I said. “It’s not ‘the same for everyone’ because people generally respect the other people around them. I’m not saying don’t recline at all, but just halfway.” It was like the guy was on my lap. I’m not actually sure why they make the seats in these economy areas recline as much as they do, using seats from a time when there was much more legroom. Airlines have tried to squeeze passengers more and more in recent years, no wonder there is so much air-rage. On other economy flights they either don’t recline at all or just a little. Either way, be respectful innit. I feel like flight attendants should announce at the start of the flight that passengers should be considerate of their fellow cattle, their fellow battery hens. As I tried to move to get my bag, I’m sure my legs must have knocked the seat in front a few times, which I try not to do but dude, really. Eventually though, he relented, and moved his seat forward a bit more, with some quiet grumbling, and in a way that was very much like he was deciding that he was more comfortable further forward, nothing to do with me. So I had a bit more room to breathe, which was good because I was still sick, and very much losing my voice. I started a sketch early on this flight, and you can see that we were still only over Scotland by the time his seat went forward again, and I could put my lukewarm Pepsi Max on the seat (British airports – it might be nice if you occasionally refrigerated your cold drinks, thanks very much). I might have had eleven hours of that. I drew this in my little Fabriano Venezia sketchbook. We eventually got to LAX after what felt like a series of Andor (slow and painful and full of boring characters, and still not actually at our destination when the whole thing was over), and flew on to Sacramento after a long walk along not that busy road with the very narrow sidewalk that runs a ring through the middle of the airport. I will say though the immigration guy when I landed in LA was very friendly. We landed at Sacramento and got one of the worst Ubers ever, a smelly car driven by this stoner dude drinking a Big Gulp who played awful music and kept telling me about his trip to London in like 1999 and how he never saw any green space at all, “London has like no parks” (even after this journey I’m like, mate you clearly weren’t in London if you saw no parks or trees). I could still barely hear after the planes had messed up my ears, and I just wanted to see the cats, get to my bedroom, fall asleep. But even as we went up our pathway dragging our suitcases and sweating in the shock of the Davis heat, I could barely hear the Uber driver calling me from his car, and I was nearly in the house when I noticed him. What did he want, had we left something? No, apparently we hadn’t closed the door the whole way getting out of the car, in my exhaustion from that horribly long journey I hadn’t noticed. Rather than just get out and close it himself and drive on, he just sat there drinking his Big Gulp and waiting for me to come back, and open and close the door again more firmly, which I did. Honestly, I really just wanted to not be around people for a good while.

Well we got our wish because next day we all got progressively sick, and so we tested and sure enough, Covid had finally got us. So we stayed home all week, not seeing anyone, ordering food in, and tried to recover from our vacation. July 4th fireworks came and went, I nearly joined the cats hiding under the sofa. But even if the air travel itself was stressful (and that includes flying from Inverness into Luton, my least favourite airport, and the post-midnight Uber ride from there back to London), our trip overall was fun, and we saw some amazing places, many of which I sketched. So I’ll post all those next. Despite all of this travel fun, I actually can’t wait to go and visit somewhere else. But as I’ve said before, it’s always nice to finally get back home, even if it’s to 100+ degree weather.

flying back home again

July 21, 2023July 19, 2023Leave a comment

Here is yet another in-flight sketch. You’d think I’d be bored of them by now (I am, actually) but drawing on a long journey does help me to relax. I’m so sick of flying and airports, but it’s the quickest way to get to the place 5000 miles away that I need to get to, since teleportation doesn’t exist. As on the flight over, I had the whole row to myself and the legroom was alright (very unlike my more recent flights to/from the UK). I was able to add more detail to or finish off some of the many sketches I’d done on this trip, and it was pretty smooth all in all. I drew this in the small Fabriano Venezia book, I love using pencil in that book and will try to use pencil a bit more, to do something different to the pen thing the whole time. It was a productive trip, I went back to places I had not been in many many years, put them in my sketchbook, saw people I’d not seen in years, but at the end of it I really wanted to get back home. I love going home to London, but I really love coming home again to California. I’m really lucky I ended up here.

afternoon at the arms

September 8, 2022September 7, 2022Leave a comment

The last sketches from my first trip back to Europe this summer. I’d be back in a month and a bit, with the family, for more London and France. On the Friday, following a Thursday of staying in Burnt Oak and then working remotely in the evening (I say evening, I didn’t actually stop until almost 4am…that’s late even on California time, but there was a deadline), I went to Hampstead and met up with my friend Roshan. We walked about the village and over the Heath, it was a nice day and the views across London were amazing. I really miss London, and this is what I miss. We stopped off at a couple of places to have a cold drink and a sit down, these forty-something-year-old legs need resting more often, and ended up at a pub we’d never been to before, the Southampton Arms, down Parliament Hill / Tufnell Park. It’s a small place, with great music and a good choice of beers. This is the sort of place to spend a warm afternoon. I had to draw it, to catch a bit of the light and the mood. I used to live not too far from this part of London, up in the Highgate area, before moving to America. I often daydream of whether we would still live around there had we stayed in London; it’s so expensive to live there, and we could never earn enough with the sort of jobs we were doing, but you never know. I’ll always be a Londoner, but we will probably never live there again; I guess I’m Californian now. Still it’s nice to visit and see friends and family, while we can. I went back home for dinner with my mum, and that evening also met up with another friend James down in the Angel for an overdue catch-up (and lots of Beatles chat).

I flew back on the 12th, on the day when the COVID testing requirement to re-enter the States was officially dropped (I still had to do a proctored video test the day before, but by the time I had to enter my results into the system there was no need). We had a small family gathering the evening before at my mum’s, which ended in a lot of singing and dancing in the back yard, many Irish songs. I found it hard to sleep through the night though, as there was a big punch-up in the street between some of my mum’s Romanian neighbours, and I mean it was a proper fist fight between three blokes, you could hear the ‘thwack!’ and ‘pow!’ noises as the blows landed, even over the loud exclamations of a woman right below my window. It went on for quite some time, I wanted to tell them to take it down the park please, but given how loud we were playing the Wolfe Tones just a few hours before I couldn’t really tell them to pipe down. So I just kept my window closed and thought well, at least this will be a story. Usually I’m kept awake in Burnt Oak by the sound of foxes fighting in the bins and bushes, those things are loud. I made my plane in good time though, and I had an odd seat, in that there was no seat in front of me, giving me loads of lovely legroom. Also no screen to watch, but then I was going to be watching that Sex Pistols show on my iPad anyway, and listening to more Beatles podcasts. The guy next to me was a bit jealous of my legroom I think. He was chatty and kept trying to have a conversation with me at first, but beyond a few pleasantries I wasn’t really interested in listening to this guy for ten hours so put the headphones on and started drawing, because I just can’t stop drawing can I.

to honolulu and back

August 30, 20216 Comments

Earlier this month we took a short vacation to Hawaii, to the island of O’ahu, where we first stayed in 2017. It was great to get away, but also my first flights since the start of the pandemic, so a little nervous. It’s a fairly long flight to Honolulu (over five hours) but you know, nearer than London. Of course, I have to draw on the plane, it helps me relax. Everyone was masked up, thankfully. I filled the page with some colours – these were actually the colours of the lighting on the plane, as it changed about, it was a bit freaky. It was a newer airplane. I did watch an interesting documentary about Ossie Ardiles, my childhood hero. We spent five nights in Waikiki, and just as all the reports had said, Hawaii was packed with tourists, especially our hotel, especially the elevators. Nonetheless it was great to have a break, great to be in the ocean, and be around all the colourful scenery. And cool down – it was very warm, but cooler weather than Davis which was in the 100-110 degree range around when we left. I drew a map of the island when we left, showing the spots we visited on this trip. I did a fair bit of sketching too, I’ll post those separately.

And on the way back, I drew the plane again, this time with even brighter colours, like a huge shave ice. Always good to get away. The way things are going again, might be the last time in a while…

Hawai’i Holiday

June 3, 20206 Comments

2020 has been a big pile of farts wrapped inside a cake of poo mixed into a giant bowl of wee. And just when you think it can’t hold any more beer, every day just keeps asking it to hold its beer. Why will no day this year hold its own beer? Is it too much to ask to maybe just put your beer on a table or maybe don’t do the thing you were going to do that requires you to not hold a beer? Go home 2020, you are drunk. But you’ll have to walk because there are no cabs, and you better be in before the curfew starts.

2019 ended so well, at least for me. We spent the final days of the year in Hawai’i, in a tropical paradise sipping cocktails in the pool and playing the ukulele in the ocean. It seems like an extravagant piece of fantasy fiction now; if you try to visit Hawai’i these days you have to quarantine for two weeks, and your hotel gives you a one-time-only key that lets you into your room but not back again if you deign to leave it. Cheers 2020 you utter *!#*%!. Happily I did start the year with my feet in the ocean. It was only ever going downhill from there.

So, finally I’ll post some of the sketches I did while there. I didn’t do too many, as I was pretty busy sipping cocktails and playing the ukulele in the ocean, but of course I draw whenever I can so here are a few. Above, sketched on the flight to Kahului in Maui, where we would change before flying to Kona on the west side of Hawai’i, the Big Island. We were spending Christmas there – you can see I have spelled “Mele Kalikimaka” wrong – that’s Hawaiian for Merry Christmas – with my wife’s family also flying in from California, and from there we were going to spend New Year’s back in Maui, just the three of us. Hawai’i is pretty great, but I might occasionally leave the apostrophe behind and just say Hawaii if that’s ok.

An attempt at drawing digitally, which I was still getting the hang of, waiting to change planes at Maui airport. We took so many flights last year, going all over the place, that it’s probably for the best that in 2020 we’ll be taking so few. I’m not a fan of airports, at least they are small in Hawaii and have lots of those lovely chocolate covered macadamia nuts to eat, expensive though they are.

I’ll tell you what else they have a lot of in Hawaii – Spam. They love it there! Loads of different varieties in the stores. Also, custard pies, proper big custard pies, like the ones clowns or the phantom from Tiswas would throw. (Actually I’m not sure the phantom had actual custard in his pies, come to think of it he threw flans of foam, which I always remembered as custard pies) (Why is this a thing? Well in the supermarket I was texting back and forth with my big sister about having found actual custard pies and we were talking about that). Anyway Spam. I don’t actually eat most of it (not being a pork/beef/that sort of meat eater) but they did have some delicious turkey spam so I cooked that up for breakfast.

Christmas Eve sat on a tropical beach is pretty alright though, huh. I’ll say that is quite a nice way to do it. With delicious shave ice and cocktails at the little beach club at Mauna Lani, this was perfect. The ocean was warm, the waves not very strong, and my brother-in-law went snorkeling further out (I didn’t, but maybe next time I’ll give the snorkeling a go). I loved just spending time in the water. My sketch does no justice at all to the scene, but it’s fun to unwind on the sand as well.

But the Christmas traditions are important in our family, and one of the most important is sitting watching Muppet’s Christmas Carol on DVD on Christmas Eve. The best Christmas film. Michael Caine’s best film. The best version of this story (and I love the Albert Finney version). I drew it on the iPad with a nice cold beer. We also watch Blackadder’s Christmas Carol every year as well, another tradition, and The Snowman, but admittedly we’re not paying as much attention to The Snowman by that point. I also like watching It’s A Wonderful Life, but since 2020 feels like the Pottersville timeline it’s a bit on the nose. We were staying in a house near Waikoloa, with great views of lava tubes, about a 10-15 minute walk to the beach. Not a bad place! The Big Island is very different from the previous island we had visited, Oahu. At least, our side of it was. It’s much bigger, and much rockier, being part of an active volcano. The lava field landscapes were incredible, immense plains of sharp lava rock stretching down to the ocean from the enormous peaks. And you drive what feels like a short way and suddenly it feels like the jungle, everything is green and wet. We went on a kayak trip down the old flumes of the sugar plantation in Kohala, that was very interesting, something I will remember for years. We didn’t explore the Hilo side of the island this time, nor did we have time to go up to the volcano (plus it rained), but I want to go back on a future trip.

IMG_6709 - low resolution

But maybe not in 2020. I’ll post some more of my Hawai’i sketches in the next posts.

A little London and a bit of Vegas

April 16, 2020April 15, 2020Leave a comment

I went back to London at the end of November / start of December for a short week, and managed to get in a couple of sketches while I was at it. Above is the view looking down Haymarket. It was a bright day. I really enjoy looking up in London, seeing what’s at rooftop level. Years ago I used to tourguide down this street, on the upper deck of an open-top bus, pointing out this, talking about that. That was twenty years ago now, how things have changed. These rooftops have not changed much. Another thing that hasn’t changed much, Phantom of the Opera is still playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre, which is on the right there, at the corner of Charles II Street. I went to see it once, I knew someone who worked for the show who got me a ticket, and I had to enter right as it was beginning, so it was dark as I went to my seat, which was in the front row, where people have long legs that I can trip over, and I tripped over and onto my head, and nearly fell into the musicians. Fun times, always the cool cat I was. Bit of a silly story though, Phantom of the Opera, at least the bits where Jar-Jar was messing around. Lightsabre fighting was amazing though. Wow that was twenty years ago, I remember it so well.

A show I saw considerably recentlyer was Hamilton, which we saw right here in London two years ago, and then again in San Francisco last year. This is the Victoria Palace Theatre in Victoria, with Little Ben in the foreground. I drew this after leaving my Gatwick Express train and before jumping onto the Tube, that;s right, I arrive and immediately start sketching in the rain. Well I knew my wife would like this, she is a big fan of Hamilton the musical. I loved it too, especially the bit with the racecars, but I was sure Vettel would challenge him to a duel at the end, but he crashed out in the 46th lap after making another avoidable mistake. I have a really good memory for theatre stuff, it must be my degree in drama.

I didn’t draw much on this short London trip. It was really just to see the family, I just felt the need to come over there (maybe I had a feeling that 2020 would see us all stuck at home and unable to get across the Atlantic), catch up with some friends, and that’s it really. I bought a bunch of mince pies for christmas, a nice store assistant in Tesco Borehamwood showed me how to find all the boxes that had sell-by dates later than December 24, they were hidden deep. I was taking all my mince pies and yule logs and British festive foods with me to Hawaii for our Christmas vacation. But then it was time to go home, and sat on the plane I could tell was going to go home with a cold, just a feeling in my throat, back in the days when we just trusted our immense immune systems to do their job because that cold was probably just a cold, no worries. (It was, though I also picked up some bad nasal infection). I managed another sketch on the plane though, this time with the iPad, while Big Tex next to me planted his massive elbows on the armrest and beyond like it was manifest destiny. There was no social distancing in coach. It was another time, back in the 2010s.

One more thing, one more trip back in time. I flew to London via Las Vegas, as it was the easiest route, but it meant I had to stay the night. It has been many years since I was in Vegas, so this one night away was going to be a bit of a time-travel trip, and so I chose to stay at the Luxor, which is the hotel we stayed at before our wedding way back in the mid 2000s. We still lived in London them, so the Luxor felt big and glamourous and futuristic. Yeah not so much this time. I checked in fairly late, the desk woman barely saying a single thing to me as she snatched my credit card and scornfully slammed it back, “welcome to Vegas, now f*%koff to wherever”. Nice to feel like a valued customer, not even telling me how to find my room in this ridiculous headache of a shopping mall. The room was dark and a bit grubby, peeling wallpaper that certainly has not had an upgrade since we were here in 2004. I walked about the casino, a depressing experience, unsure of what the time really was, and went to find some food, which I found, and didn’t enjoy. This is one of the older casinos, of course, but I’m just so not used to Vegas any more. Worst of all though was the smoke, hanging over everything like a plague-ridden miasma. This is definitely something I don’t miss, choking in other people’s fumes, irritating my nose, throat, eyes, soaking into my clothes, in a huge concrete pyramid. That gave me a headache more than the flashing Wheel of Fortune machines. Still this is a trip back in time. I contemplated walking over to New York New York where I remember having a fun evening with friends at the Five Nine Irishmen bar or whatever it’s called, when my mate Simon had the worst Guinness he ever drank, but instead I stopped for a couple of drinks at the bar in the centre of the Luxor, and drew what I could see amid the colourful 70s style haze. I listened to people talk, it seemed to be a mix of locals hanging out there rather than tourists, and the cocktail I had was nice, and the barstaff pleasant. I went to bed and got a good night’s sleep before the flight to London in the morning, though my own airways couldn’t wait to get out of the building.