Category Archives: London Dispatches

London Dispatches = weak tea.

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Greetings from London, my dearly beloved Many Tens of Loyal Readers™.  I have been remiss in posting regularly, and for that I sincerely apologize.  It is no excuse that I have been working on a piece for The Political Junkies For Progressive Democracy, and have not yet had time to coherently assemble all of my interview and research notes, thoughts thereon, and related photos.  Except, oh wait yeah, it sort of is an excuse.

Before I left, I had a general idea of what I wanted to write about on this trip.  As a result of my endeavors here, however, my focus has narrowed to subject matter simultaneously more interesting and more treacherous than I originally envisioned.  I need to think about this very carefully and write about it very thoughtfully, and thus it will naturally take time.  This has proven to be especially problematic in light of the delightful distractions on offer in London.

For instance…

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The British Museum.  The building itself is stunning, a fluid juxtaposition of modern and ancient, all soft palettes and diffuse natural light:

britishmuseum

I saw the Rosetta Stone, a fragment of an Egyptian legal decree (from 196 BCE) carved in three different languages.  Upon its rediscovery (in 1799 CE) by a French soldier on an expedition to Egypt, it was a key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.  Egypt has been seeking the stone’s return since 2003.  Meanwhile, it is the most visited object in the British Museum.

Bank Levy. Steve Bell (b. 1951), Ink and watercolour, 2011. © Steve Bell 2011.I also enjoyed Bubbles and bankruptcy: financial crises in Britain since 1700.  Here’s part of the blurb for the exhibition:

The current financial crisis is not the first to have affected Britain, and it is unlikely to be the last. In this display you can find out more about the extraordinary stories of mismanagement, speculative frenzy, fraud and failure which permeate the history of finance. From the nation’s first major speculative bubble, caused by the South Sea Company in 1720, to the UK banking crisis in 2008–2012, the display uses original share certificates, prospectuses, banknotes and other fascinating objects to explain how, why and when financial crises have happened.

And by extension, it explains how and why —if not precisely when — devastating financial crises in underregulated capitalist systems operating in formal democracies will happen again.  The financial crisis in Britain is significantly worse than the mess in the U.S., mainly as a result of massive injections of a toxic substance known as “austerity.” (In the U.S. we are being given a slower intravenous drip, so that like the frog in gradually warming water we will not realize we are doomed until we are well and fully cooked.)  It’s so bad here that even Goldman Sachs — Goldman Sachs! — is telling the British government to knock it the fuck off.  I have to give the curators credit:  it’s an intriguing idea for an exhibit.  And I was pleased to see a Guy Fawkes mask on display, but the exhibit itself was small in scope and light on content.

iceageartvenusI regret that I will not be in London to see Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind, which opens at the museum on February 7.

Here (pdf) you can see detailed descriptions of some of the pieces that will be on display, along with thumbnail images.

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I am thinking of redoing the Palace gates in this style:

newpalacegate

Wellington Arch, Hyde Park Corner, Knightsbridge.

newpalacegatequadriga2Discerning Loyal Readers™ will particularly appreciate the equestrian statuary atop the arch.  (Also this awesome word: quadriga.)  It depicts the angel of peace descending upon the chariot of war, or somesuch naive delusion.  Designed by Adrian Jones, it is the largest bronze sculpture in Europe.

Interesting factoids:

  • Built between 1826-1830.
  • Much of the intended exterior ornamentation was omitted as a cost-saving measure, necessitated by the king’s overspending on the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.
  • The arch is hollow inside, and until 1992 housed a small police station. It is open to the public and contains three floors of exhibits detailing its history; visitors can also step onto terraces on both sides of the top of the arch, for views of Green Park and Hyde Park.
  • One half of the arch functions as a ventilation shaft for the London Underground. This causes on average three emergency calls each year to the London Fire Brigade from people believing smoke is coming from the arch when in fact it is warm air and dust from the subway.

The Palace’s proposed replica of the Wellington Arch will not be hosting a police station.  Or tourists.  Or, needless to say, a ventilation shaft for the E train.

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LOLCAT – Teh Exhibishun.

Hahaha.

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I’ve seen some West End shows including War Horse, which SUUUUUUUUUCKED, and Matilda the Musical, which I FUCKING LOOOOOOOOOOOOVED.

Words cannot express the depth of my loathing for War Horse, but you know what?  I think I should try.  Okay:  awesome horse puppetry, great staging, blah blah blah.  Technical theatre craft at its finest.  But the novelty wears off in five minutes.  One is then left with a Very Special Episode of Lassie Come Home comprised of nearly every single cliched piece of dialogue and predictable plot device known to hackdom and lasting three excruciating fucking hours.  The casual, thoughtless acceptance of the notion that going off to war in a foreign nation is noble, natural and just.  The toxic narrative that a man’s character is forged in war.  The abysmally small number of female characters, and those relegated to 2-dimensional, overwrought, emotional stereotypes.  All of that wondrous theatrical magic deployed in the service of validating the simplistic fantasy world imagined by right-wing chickenhawks the world over.  Blech.

Matilda, on the other hand, was fucking badass.  Based on the 1988 novel by Roald Dahl, the music and lyrics are by Palace fave Tim Minchin.  I loved Roald Dahl as a child, and treasured my dog-eared copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I never read Matilda, as it was written after I had “outgrown” children’s books — well, all of them except for Atlas Shrugged.  (*sigh*).  I only rarely see musical theatre in New York:  for one thing it’s ridiculously expensive; worse, it’s frequently terrible.  (Truefax: once upon a time, Your Humble Monarch™ received B.A. in Theatre Arts, cum laude, thank you very much, from an actual, accredited University.  She is therefore eminently qualified to pronounce that musical theatre on Broadway is generally awful.)  The last musical I saw was off-Broadway:  last year I took my teenage nieces to see Carrie the Musical* (yes, that Carrie) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher Street.

But Matilda?  It was a raucous production.  Though it was difficult to catch ever word sung, Minchin’s lyrics are excellent and the music appropriately dark, eloquent and powerful.  The story is extraordinarily subversive, profoundly anti-authoritarian, an anti-anti-intellectual manifesto.  The protagonist is a little girl trapped in a family of shallow, abusive @$$holes, but Matilda is by no means some sweet, hapless, innocent requiring salvation by a White Knight (though she does come to the happiest ending one could wish for her, considering her circumstances).  Instead, Matilda is an unabashedly brilliant bookworm, a mischievous prankster, a fierce advocate for justice and fairness, and most refreshingly, angry. There is an unfortunate (and entirely unnecessary) recourse to the supernatural that bugs me, but at least it leans toward the occult as opposed to Jeezus.

In short, Matilda is joyous.  In a departure from tradition, I plan to see the New York version, which opens in April.

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*Believe it or not, Carrie the Musical was surprisingly good.  Marin Mazzie, who lived right across the hall from me when I lived in Hell’s Kitchen, was amazing as Carrie’s fundy Christturd mother.  The women’s duets in particular were something to behold, and I imagine the writers had a ball with the unusual task of writing such pieces.

Wut up.

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I find myself staring at a smattering of open browser tabs, each a reminder of a subject I had intended to write about this week.  Some of these tabs have been open so long now, I get the distinct impression they are purposefully mocking me and daring me to do something about it: you know, like, actually write something.  But when I reviewed them this morning, I realized the sources speak perfectly well for themselves.  There really is no need for some smart-ass blogger to pretend she has anything to contribute whatsoever.  So without further ado, I bring you:

IRIS’S OPEN BROWSER TABS.

A Frontline report, The Untouchables, investigates why there have been no prosecutions of Wall Street criminals.

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The Truth About the Deficit : It’s Not Very Big, And There’s Only One Way To Close It.  (See also: Deficit Hawks Down, a good piece by Paul Krugman.)

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UN launches inquiry into drone killings:

The inquiry will assess the extent of civilian casualties, the identity of militants targeted and the legality of strikes where there is no UN recognition of a conflict.

…

Some kinds of drone attacks – in particular “double tap” strikes where rescuers attending a first blast become victims of a second – could constitute a war crime…

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A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year: Hate Crimes in America (and Elsewhere).  I have a love/hate relationship with Rebecca Solnit’s writing.  For example, words cannot express the depth of my contempt for her grotesquely ill-informed condescension to lefties who do not partake of the Obama/Democratic Party KoolAid.  But this piece is outstanding, and deserves the widest possible audience.

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This piece by Julian Assange is from late November, but I had not seen it until recently.  It details quite explicitly the machinations of the U.S. government, as revealed by the State Department cables allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning and published by Wikileaks over the last two years.  Assange:

It is the case that WikiLeaks’ publications can and have changed the world, but that change has clearly been for the better. Two years on, no claim of individual harm has been presented, and the examples above clearly show precisely who has blood on their hands.

Indeed.  When U.S. foreign policy routinely includes war crimes, cover-ups, lies to the citizenry both here and abroad, support for death squads and brutal anti-democratic regimes, corruption, rendition for torture, and the deaths of untold numbers of civilians and children — to say nothing of dead, maimed, and psychologically destroyed American soldiers — the American public should damn well know the truth.  As you read it, consider whose interests U.S. foreign policy serves.  (SPOILER ALERT:  It is not We the People.)

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On a somewhat related note, here is a good Citizen Radio interview of former CIA officer John Kiriakou.  He has just been sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison for blowing the whistle on CIA torture, the latest casualty of President Obama’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers.  To date, no one who created, directed or participated in the U.S. torture regime has been charged by the DOJ with any crime.

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My WordPress stats page (which I cannot link you to) helpfully informs me that one of the week’s top search terms that brought people to the Palace is this:

it’s large phallus thrust deep into her virgin womb

I don’t really know what to say about that, except to point out for the sake of accuracy that a womb is a uterus, where no phallus should be found thrusting.  Like, EVAR.

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Finally, tomorrow is a travel day for me: I will be heading to London for a week.  Longtime Loyal Readers™ may recall my last trip to that lovely city, and the resulting groundbreaking journalism for which the Palace is deservedly renowned.  Our fearless and intrepid investigation into the pie-facing of Rupert Murdoch and the British government’s strategic response thereto still stands to this day as one of our proudest accomplishments.  Look for upcoming London dispatches — well, assuming the hotel wifi doesn’t suck.

The London Dispatches — Vol. VII. Epilogue.

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(continued from Vol. VI.)

Things were winding down at The American Bar and I was trying to figure out a way to stick ShredofTruth.com with my hefty bar tab, when in walked a photographer from The Times.  He was there to get some shots of Nancy Wake’s old haunt for an obituary running the next day.  (I’d link to it here, but (a) it’s behind a paywall, and (b) it’s a Rupert Murdoch paywall.  Plus (c), you know, fuck him.)   He took some shots of the bartender, my new friends Graeme and Barbara, and pictures of Nancy Wake on the walls.  This d00d was a total pro:  affable and efficient.  Not hard to look at, either, if you know what I mean.

So I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and just let the man work in peace, could I?  Nope.  And I was glad I didn’t, because of the amusing exchange that ensued.  (And by “amusing,” of course, I mean “amusing to me.”)

Photographer:  (Asks us all to move a little to get out of his shot.)  I want to get this right.

Iris:  You want to get this right?  Wait, don’t you work for Rupert Murdoch?  Hahaha.

Photographer:  The man is a personal hero of mine.  Don’t talk about him like that.

Iris:  Hahaha.

Graeme:  Oh, I see you’re using a bounce flash, very good.  I’m an amateur photographer myself.

Iris:  Of course he’s using a bounce flash!  What, do you think Rupert Murdoch hires hacks?  Oh, wait.  Hahaha.

Graeme and Barbara:  Hahaha.

Graeme:  Iris is a blogger.

Iris:  (Hands her card to the photographer.)  Here’s my card.  You will hate my blog.

Photographer:  That’s the name of your blog?  “You will hate my blog?”

Iris:  No, but as far as you’re concerned it might as well be:  I’m a lefty.

Photographer:  Oh.  Well, you know we have a saying: “Blogging is the Internet equivalent of the pub bore.”

(He might have said “pub whore.”  It’s just so hard to tell with those ridiculous accents!)

[Photographer thanks everyone and starts to leave.]

Iris:  Bye!  I am totally scooping you on my blog!

Photographer: (From outside the back door)  Copyright!

Iris:  Sue me!  (Mutters under breath: “Motherfucker.”)

Oh, these Brits.  They sure are witty.

I would soon be on a plane bound for New York, but not before getting a harsh reminder of why I had come to London on my Murdoch mission in the first place.  I had been collecting various newspapers to see the coverage of the riots, and one was a Murdoch tabloid, The Daily Mail, that I hadn’t read yet.  I took it with me to read at the airport as I waited to board the plane.

The Op-Ed section starts on page 14, and is dominated by a big, bold headline:  How the Liberals Ruined Britain.

Yes, that’s right people.  The riots are the fault of feminism, single mothers, immigrants, educational failure (because everyone knows how much liberals abhor education, amirite?), and every other phantom bogeyman inhabiting the dull, dark recesses of the right-wing mind.  Also, FYI, what is required to fix Britain is “a return to the energetic transmission of Biblical morality.”  Obviously.  Because nothing violent ever occurred in the name of that most peaceful and benevolent of religions, Christianity.

It will never stop.  But as long as Perry Street Palace remains standing, at least it will not go unmocked.

END TRANSMISSION.

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Many thanks to ShredofTruth.com for cross-posting Perry Street Palace’s London Dispatches.  Sorry about the enormous data roaming charges, and the even more enormous bar tabs. (Those are in pounds, by the way, not dollars.) But I’m sure your readers will agree that no price is too steep for this kind of hard-hitting, investigative journalism.  I look forward to my next assignment!
-Iris.

The London Dispatches — Vol. VI. The White Mouse.

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(continued from Vol. V.)

“To Nancy!” said Graeme to his companion, and they clinked what would turn out to be the first of many, many gin and tonics.  He pulled out his camera and took pictures of the woman, whose name was Barbara, as she sat on the stool at the far end of the bar raising her glass.  It was a dark corner, but I could just make out the brass plaque on the wall.  It said “Nancy’s Corner.”

Barbara toasting Nancy.

I had been observing them for a few minutes when I decided to interrupt the photo shoot.  “Hello,” I said, sauntering up to the bar with all the swagger and brio of a Genuine Internet Blogger.  “Excuse me, but, um, I’ve been watching people come over to this corner all afternoon.  Can I ask you why?”

“Nancy Wake!” Barbara gushed.  “She’s a World War II hero from our town in New Zealand.  We were here in England for a wedding, and when we heard the news that she had passed away we just had to come by and have a gin and tonic in her honor.  She was such an incredible lady!”

“Wow.  Mind if I join you at the bar?”

“Sure!”

I asked the bartender if I could transfer my check from the green sofa to the bar. “Of course, Madame,” he replied, for at least the tenth time that day.  I ordered another drink.  “Of course, Madame.”  (Eleven.)

Barbara, Graeme, and the bartender soon regaled me with incredible stories about Nancy Wake, all of which sounded like just so much bullshit.  But every word turned out to be true.

“That’s her picture right there,” Barbara pointed.  “She was beautiful.”

Indeed she was.

Staring out in her bomber jacket, Nancy Wake was stunning in her portrait, and not simply because she was pretty and young.  She was as gorgeous as a Hollywood star, a rival to any of the legendary screen sirens who were her contemporaries — but it was not because an army of photographers and makeup artists and stylists and Photoshop retouchers created her “look.” No, it was something in the eyes.  They were a little sad and unmistakably world-weary, yet full of fire, hard-won wisdom and mirth.  The lights were on.

Barbara and Graeme ordered another round of gin and tonics, and I ordered another drink and looked up Nancy Wake on my iPhone.  I could not believe what I was reading, and wondered why I had never heard of this woman before.*  These are just some of the highlights:

  • After the fall of France in 1940, she became a courier for the French Resistance. By 1943, she was the Gestapo’s most-wanted person, with a 5 million-franc bounty on her head.  Because of her uncanny ability to evade capture, the Gestapo dubbed her “The White Mouse.”
  • She has said she was moved by scenes of Jewish persecution in Europe in the 1930s and would have felt ashamed if she had not acted against such evil.
  • She shot her way out of roadblocks and sabotaged German installations.
  • She threw a grenade into a crowded Nazi cafe.
  • She led attacks on the local Gestapo headquarters in Montluçon.
  • She honed her own information-gathering strategy: flirting.
  • She killed an SS sentry with her bare hands to prevent him from setting off an alarm during a raid.  (When asked in a 1990s television interview what had happened to the sentry who spotted her, she simply drew her finger across her throat.)
  • To replace codes that her wireless operator had been forced to destroy in a German raid, she rode a bicycle for more than 500 miles through several German checkpoints.
  • She parachuted back into France in 1944, to be trained in sabotage and killing.  Upon discovering her tangled in a tree, the Captain greeted her, remarking “I hope that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year.” To which she replied: “Don’t give me that French shit.”
  • From April 1944 to the liberation of France, her 7,000 Special Ops forces took on 22,000 SS soldiers, causing 1,400 casualties, while taking only 100 themselves.
  • During a German attack on another Special Ops group, Wake, along with two American officers, took command of a section whose leader had been killed.  She directed the covering fire with exceptional coolness, facilitating the group’s withdrawal without a single further casualty.
  • Her husband was tortured and killed in 1943 for not giving her up.  Until the war was over she was unaware of her husband’s death and the circumstances surrounding it, and she subsequently blamed herself for it.
  • She did not, however, cook eggs and bacon for her troops, as depicted in a 1987 mini-series. For one thing, there were no eggs.  And as she explained, she “had men to do that sort of thing.”
  • Wake was feted in Europe after the war, as she would be almost six decades later when she returned to London and relied on friends and admirers to get by.
  • In 1985, Wake published her autobiography, entitled The White Mouse. The book became a best seller, and has been reprinted many times.
  • Nancy lived at The Stafford Hotel for some of her later years, downing her beloved gin & tonics at her favorite seat at The American Bar every day.  (She said she had been introduced to her first “bloody good drink” there by the general manager at the time, Louis Burdet, who had also worked for the Resistance in Marseilles.)
  • Rumor has it that The Stafford Hotel, with an assist from Prince Charles and other benefactors, quietly paid her bills.
  • She was long disillusioned with Australia. Wake noted, after being denied medals many felt she was owed, that she carried a passport of her country of birth, New Zealand.  She would much later accept a Companion of the Order of Australia, but only after she suggested that such belated offers belonged where a “monkey sticks his nuts.”
  • In 2003 she chose to move to the Royal Star and Garter Home for Disabled Ex-Service Men and Women in Richmond, London, where she remained until her death.
  • Nancy Wake was told to give up her gin and tonics when she had a heart attack at 90.  Until her death last Sunday, however, Wake always welcomed the gift of a bottle of gin.
  • Her motto was simple: “Have fun.”
  • She had no children.

Barbara kept calling her a lady.  I kept insisting that no, Nancy Wake was most certainly not a lady, but a broad.  More rounds and toasts and tales and general merriment ensued.

And so, my dear readers, it turns out that the interesting story is not about Rupert Murdoch, who is really, really boring when he’s not getting pied in the face, but Nancy Wake, The White Mouse, who died on August 7, 2011 at the age of 98, and was never, ever boring.

Nancy Wake
“The White Mouse”
1912 – 2011
R.I.P.

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*I suspect the reason I have never heard of Nancy Wake before in a history class has something to do with American exceptionalism, for sure.  But I also detect the foul stench of Conservative Personality Disorder, which rears its ugly little head in the long history of wingnuts going absolutely apeshit over the very idea of women in combat.  See, e.g.:

Hell, a prominent conservative was musing just the other day whether women belong in politics.  And who can forget Ann Coulter pointing out how much better the country would be if only women could not vote.

The existence of people like Nancy Wake puts the lie to conservatives’ deranged view of women, and of history.  Conservatives routinely rewrite reality to align it with their worldview, instead of the other way around.  They just did it in Texas, completely fucking up textbooks and school curricula in order to indoctrinate children with their warped view of reality.  Given all the time that has passed and the blind determination of conservatives to ignore any fact that illustrates how wrong they are, it does not seem much of a stretch to think that they would purposefully neglect to mention a White Mouse — and probably many more like her.

The London Dispatches — Vol. V. Murdoch’s Lair.

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(continued from Vol. IV.)

I had hit the jackpot with this Reuters piece:  Rupert Murdoch’s apartment was somewhere in the Mayfair section of London, “opposite the Stafford Hotel.”  And yours truly was headed there in a hurry, trusty iPhone in hand.

Wait a minute:  Rupert Murdoch’s “apartment?”  WTF, motherfuckers?  I had been traipsing all over London looking for a palace.  Not “palace” as in Perry Street “Palace,” but a real, honest-to-goodness P.A.L.A.C.E., with turrets, and flags, a working dungeon, maybe a moat or something.  But an apartment?  Huh.  Could it be that Rupert Murdoch and I had a lot more in common than I thought?  Did he, like me, reside in a modest (carbon friendly!) yet ridiculously cool apartment in a historic building, in a fantastic neighborhood, in one of the world’s greatest cities?

This was almost too inconceivable to fathom.

The Stafford Hotel is on a short, out-of-the-way, dead-end street, one that can only be accessed by yet another short, out-of-the-way, dead-end street.  Suffice it to say, there were not many potential candidates for an apartment “opposite the Stafford Hotel.”  Except for one hideous, hulking, glass-and-concrete monstrosity, this tiny neighborhood was almost painfully adorable, its streets lined with beautifully restored and lovingly maintained old townhomes.

Lovely low-rise townhouses abound near The Stafford Hotel.

There was almost no one on the streets.  I retraced my steps, walking the two blocks back and forth, from end to end, and stopped in front of The Stafford.  Something about this seemed strangely familiar.  I whipped out the trusty iPhone and downloaded my Murdoch files, then scrolled through page after page until I found exactly what I was looking for.  From a Huffington Post article that mentioned “Murdoch’s London residence,” I had pulled this picture:

And here was the view from right where I stood:

Ooooooh.  I was close!  Very close.  I prayed (okay not really) that I would be able to come through for Shred of Truth.com in a big way, hoping they would get their money’s worth for what was turning out to be a colossal bill for my data roaming charges.

Then, suddenly, I said to myself “Fuck it.”  I was heading to the bar.

The American Bar.

The Stafford Hotel’s American Bar (pdf) looks almost exactly as I had pictured it:  old-school mens-clubby, with dark wood paneling, green leather furniture, crisp white linens, serious bartenders.  In fact it looked very much like its New York City counterparts, the big-money boys clubs chock full of older men in expensive suits, with a few conservatively-dressed, middle-aged dames sprinkled among them.  In other words, places that I never, ever go, unless I happen to be working undercover on a Top Secret Palace mission —  like this one.

I inquired with the host about some food and drink, and the gracious gentleman said “Of course, Madame,” and led me to a quiet corner near the end of the bar.  I promptly parked my royal arse on a green leather sofa.  Out of nowhere a small army appeared, and set about expertly draping layers of sparkling white linens over the coffee table.  My drink order arrived within seconds, and along with it came a smashing selection of complimentary snacks:  smoked nuts, Spanish olives, and tiny chips and crackers.  You know what?  This place was all right.

I pretended to be doing Important Work Things on my iPhone, as I eavesdropped on two different conversations.  It didn’t take very long until I determined that both were insufferably, brain-achingly dull.  In the meantime, I kept noticing various staff and patrons approaching the wall just to my left, between me and the end of the bar.  They would mumble something and point at some of the pictures hung there.  Despite the proximity, their hushed and reverent tones made it difficult to make out much of what they were saying.  My food arrived:  a traditional British fish cake.  (Important note to readers:  DO NOT order a traditional British fish cake, ever.  It turns out that this staple of English fare is neither fishy nor cakey, but some unholy amalgam of briny, oily clumps.  Do not go there.)

I distinctly heard one of the staff, who was hovering at the wall to my left, say this, loud and clear:  “A photographer from The Times is coming.”

Presumably, that would be Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper, The Times.  What the hell was going on here?  I flagged down the d00d who said it, and asked him, “What the hell is going on here?”

“A long-time patron of the bar who lived in the hotel for many years passed away yesterday, and The Times is sending someone to photograph the bar for a story.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you, Madame.”

“Did you mean Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper, The Times?”

“Yes.  You know, he lives right across the street.  Comes in here all the time!  It’s his favorite bar.”

I almost choked on my fish cake.  Frankly, I was kind of choking on it already.

“Oh?  Really.  I had no idea.  Do you happen to know which building he lives in?”

“Of course.  It’s across the street.  He lives at the top of the one with the underground driveway.  The tall one.”

“The one with all the glass and concrete?”

“Fantastic views of the park.”

Oh, no.  No, no, no.  Rupert Murdoch lives in the one hideous, hulking, glass-and-concrete monstrosity?  The one so entirely out of place in the neighborhood that I nearly wailed in agony when I saw it?

“Excuse me,” I said, “I’ll be right back.  I need to go take a picture —   I’m – I – it’s – well, I’m a really big fan…”  He dashed off to deliver impeccable service (or a terrible fish cake) to someone else.

I stood outside the Stafford, and took it in.  Of course it has great views of the park:  it’s two stories taller than anything else around it.

I strolled by, looking for any redeeming feature.  The only one I could ascertain was off-street parking in a lot under the building.  I could see how that would be extremely useful for a billionaire media magnate under siege from the worldwide press.  Well, under siege from that tiny sliver of the worldwide press that Rupert Murdoch does not personally own.

I am telling you, Rupert Murdoch lives in the fucking Trump Tower of Mayfair.

Murdoch's Lair.

I meandered back to The American Bar and sunk into my green leather sofa, flipping through the pictures I had taken.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Death Star.  Maybe that was exactly the vibe he was going for:  you know, “Darth Rupert.”  Now that I think about it, it suits him perfectly, in an utterly predictable way.

In a city where one cannot spit without hitting magnificent architecture, Murdoch’s palace had turned out to be positively dismal.  My disappointment was profound.  I was practically morose.  Thank goodness I had the good sense to order another drink, because just moments later a lively, middle-aged couple entered the bar like a breath of fresh air.  These people were nothing short of ecstatic to point at the pictures on the wall to my left.  “Two gin and tonics!” the woman said to the bartender as she seated herself on the bar stool in the corner. “For Nancy!  Ooh, is this her seat?  Graeme, take a picture of me in Nancy’s seat!”

Okay.  Now I would have to investigate.  Because, WTF, motherfuckers.

(to be continued…)

The London Dispatches — Vol. IV. The Palaces.

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(continued from Vol. III.)

London is a city blessed with gorgeous old palaces — you know, actual palaces — as well as hundreds of buildings that could easily pass for royal abodes.  Your intrepid correspondent was especially intrigued to learn that the target of her investigation, Rupert Murdoch, maintains a residence in London.  As the 117th-richest person in the entire world, Murdoch’s palace would surely prove to be spectacular specimen.

I grabbed the only tool any journalist ever needs — my trusty iPhone with its shitty camera, unreliable Internet access, short battery life, and GPS with impossibly slow-moving maps (good thing Shred of Truth.com was paying for my AT&T data roaming charges, amirite?) — and set out on foot.

Rupert Murdoch's face. (via Wikipedia)

As I wandered aimlessly in circles hoping that the iPhone GPS would eventually pinpoint my position on a map of London, I figured in the meantime I’d just start asking around.  Rupert Murdoch, after all, is a public figure whose face had recently been splashed all over the newspapers and TV, until the debt ceiling circus and subsequent financial shitstorm knocked his mug right off.  Unfortunately, my “just ask around!” strategy did not work out so well.  Neither the concierge nor either of the bartenders at the hotel had any idea who the hell I was even talking about, much less where he might live.  It was not a total loss, however, since I thoroughly enjoyed several glasses of a lovely Vermentino whilst simultaneously working on my hard-hitting investigation into the burning question of our time, WTF, motherfuckers.

When my GPS finally transformed me into a sexy, pulsing blue dot on a map of London, I discovered that I was within walking distance of not one but several enormous palaces.  It had started to drizzle, but for some reason, I didn’t care at all.  (Probably the Vermentino.)

I strolled through Green Park until I saw a behemoth of a building in the distance.  As I got closer, I noticed many people had gathered outside of its high gates, chatting in various languages and taking pictures through the iron bars.  Could this be the Murdoch mansion?  If it were indeed a private residence, it would certainly be a magnificent one.  Bewildered and excited, I pressed my way through the crowd.  “Excuse me, is this Rupert Murdoch’s palace?” I asked in the direction of no one in particular.  No one answered.  “EXCUSE ME, DOES RUPERT MURDOCH LIVE HERE?”  Well, that certainly got some attention:  a small group of (hawt!) young men turned around and glared at me.  One said, “No, you idiot, this is Buckingham Palace.”

Could this be Murdoch’s palace? Nooooooo. It's apparently some d00d’s named “Buckingham,” or somesuch.

It had stopped raining, and a pleasant walk soon brought me to what my GPS indicated were the grounds of St. James Palace.  But the GPS just couldn’t be right.  There was house music blaring from loudspeakers fer chrissakes, and, I mean, look at it:

What’s that, you say?  All that unsightly VISA signage right there in the foreground?  No palace worthy of the name would ever succumb to such crass commercialism.

Oh.  Yes.  They.  Would.  What you are seeing there is the fencing set up around a makeshift outdoor stadium for the express purposes of hosting a beach volleyball tournament.  Not a polo tournament, or a medieval jousting tournament.  A beach volleyball tournament.  Brought to you by VISA!  (By the way, my next palace is totally going to have a beach volleyball tournament stadium with a DJ spinning house records.)

Rude locals.

Rude locals.

I skirted around the fencing and approached the sprawling mansion, looking for any indication that Mr. Murdoch might dwell inside.  Was he a huge fan of beach volleyball, and yet I had somehow missed this in all my exhaustive research?  If he indeed lived in St. James Palace, the locals working on and around the grounds should be able to tell me, so I approached a few of them with my trademarked friendly smile (fake, of course!), and politely inquired as to whether this might be the residence of Rupert Murdoch.  Well, the locals were absolutely no help whatsoever.  They completely ignored me no matter how many times I yelled and screamed my question at them.  (And people say New Yorkers are rude? PLEASE.)

I stormed away in frustration, and schlepped forlornly back to my hotel room.  Back in WIFI range, I looked up St. James Palace on the Intertubes.  On its Wikipedia page I learned that this particular palace is no longer a private residence, so I could definitely cross it off my list.  It does, however, have a long and bizarre history.  For example:

Two of Henry VIII’s children died there: Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset and Mary I (Mary’s heart and bowels were buried in the palace’s Chapel Royal).

I’m pretty sure I could dedicate the rest of my life to it and never come up with a satisfactory answer to WTF is up with THAT, motherfuckers?

I was back to the proverbial drawing board Internet.  For what seemed like hours I slogged through web site after web site, cursing Google and re-refining my search terms, until a brief dispatch from Reuters caught my eye.  It was buried among hundreds of news stories about the phone hacking scandal, and its headline read Murdoch exits London home with arm around Brooks.  I eagerly clicked the link.  No pictures.  Damn!  But lo and behold, I had struck gold:

Murdoch, who flew into Britain earlier on Sunday to deal with an escalating phone-hacking scandal at his News of the World tabloid that Brooks used to edit, answered: “This one,” gesturing at [Rebekah] Brooks, when asked what his first priority was.

[Murdoch and Brooks], both smiling, then went into the Stafford hotel opposite Murdoch’s apartment in the upmarket Mayfair area of London.

I swung into action, stopping only at the front desk to exchange my $20.00 bills for £10.00 notes.  (Talk about a financial crisis.  Sheesh.).  The Stafford Hotel, conveniently enough, has a web site that tells you exactly where it is.  It also did not escape my keen eye that the Stafford is home to The American Bar (pdf), which sure sounded to me like it was worth the trip alone.  Charles Guano, who for some reason never did like his surname, had been the head barman there for 42 years until his death, and in his time at The American Bar he had done something extraordinary:

There is a display case containing glasses that have been used by the various members of the Royal family. Directly after use, Charles would wrap the glass in cling film and place it in the case. Therefore The Stafford has the DNA of most of the senior members of the Royal family and could at some future date recreate them!

Let us fervently hope not.  But those very same DNA samples could potentially reveal incontrovertible proof of some serious hanky-panky among the royals, could they not?  I mean, what if it turned out that Prince Charles were the son of Ronald Reagan?  Or Adolph Hitler?  OMFG!  As a highly experienced and well-respected investigative journalist who prides herself on holding the very highest of ethical standards, let me just say that these Stafford folks are potentially sitting on a gold mine.  I’m talking, blockbuster movie deal goldmine.  You know what I’m saying?

I was headed to the Stafford, stat.

(to be continued…)

The London Dispatches — Vol III. Portcullis House.

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I came to London on a Top Secret Murdoch Mission dammit, and that is exactly what I will now report (smoking ruins and riot police notwithstanding).  After all, as a journalist I take very seriously my solemn oath to seek out the answer to what is perhaps the most pressing question of our time:  WTF, motherfuckers? 

Rupert Murdoch, of course, is the 80 year old media magnate behind such roiling cesspools of conservative ca-ca as Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, right-wing tabloids like the New York Post, and many, many other media outlets around the world.  According to Forbes’ annual list of the richest Americans, Murdoch is the 38th richest person in the U.S., and the 117th-richest in the world, with a net worth estimated at $7.6 billion.  According to Wiki:

The Economist describes Murdoch as “inventing the modern tabloid”, as he developed a pattern for his newspapers, increasing sports and scandal coverage and adopting eye-catching headlines.

Murdoch and his hawt wife Wendi in 2011 (via Wikipedia)

Well, Rupert Murdoch is now the focus of scandal coverage and eye-catching headlines himself.  You see, apparently it was common practice at his now-defunct UK paper News of the World for reporters to hack into the voice mail accounts of celebrities, politicians, dead soldiers, and in one case a murdered young girl whose family held out hope that she was still alive after discovering that some of her voice mail messages had been deleted — as it turned out, by News of the World reporters.  There have also been allegations of police corruption involving a coverup of some earlier phone-hacking allegations.

When Murdoch was called to testify about these shenanigans on July 19 before a committee from the House of Commons, whatever that is, a most remarkable thing happened:  some d00d hit Murdoch in the face with a shaving cream pie, and thus became a personal hero of mine.  Equally astonishing was the lightning-quick reaction of his wife Wendi, who lunged toward the pie-flinger and landed a vicious right hook before poor drowsy old Rupert even realized that he’d been pied.  The Pie Man is one Jonathan May-Bowles, a.k.a. Johnnie Marbles, who is currently serving a four-week sentence in a London prison for this egregious “assault.”

The Murdoch pie video, of course, went viral.  Cue the Assclown Brigades:  Jonathan May-Bowles’ Facebook page lit up with comments, ranging from enthusiastic support for his pie-related activities, to enthusiastic support for his getting raped and beaten in prison.  This last sentiment more than likely emanates from Manly-Men chickenhawkers suffering from acute Conservative Personality Disorder who regularly fantasize about violent prison rape…and then feel so very, very dirty afterward.  But the worst of the lot, by far, comes from those who absolutely abhor the high art of mockery, in all its glorious splendor.  Like this tool:

Yes, my loyal readers, there are many walking among us who inexplicably value formality over content in public discourse.  There is no hope for these people.  In addition, though, the proposition that some committee members from the House of Commons were going to make Rupert Murdoch “legitimately squirm” is simply ludicrous on its face.  The man has $7.6 billion.  Neither committee hearings nor pie vaulting is likely to improve the dismal functioning of Western democracy or corporate media one whit.  However, one of those courses of action is a great deal more satisfying.  But I digress.

Continue reading →

The London Dispatches — Vol. II. Texas has seceded!

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It’s been astonishingly underreported in U.S. media, but apparently Texas has seceded from the United States, and has been recognized as a sovereign nation by the UK government!  I saw the Texas embassy with my own eyes, plain as day, mere steps from my hotel.  This must be a fairly new development, because the building still has a sign that says “Bar & Grill” on it.  Or maybe the “Bar & Grill” sign was just a ruse to keep the U.S. government from knowing of Texas’s big plans, since no one would be crazy enough to put a pub in a building as spectacular as this one.

The London Dispatches — Vol I.5

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Many thanks to those readers emailing (and commenting here at the Palace) with concerns for my personal safety.  I just returned to my hotel for the evening and am about to take enough (totally legal!) drugs to positively ensure that I’d be able to sleep through fucking Armageddon.  Ta-ta!

I am kind of irritated with myself though, because I simply did not think to pack a giant automatic weapon and 10,000 rounds of ammo.  (That’s about the carry-on limit, from what I heard.)  I now understand the profound implications of this tragic oversight on my part.  I am currently ensconced in a corner room on the second floor of this hotel:  tactically speaking I would be in an excellent position to engage in a firefight with nefarious marauders, should that become absolutely necessary.  But noooooo!  If I had actually packed an automatic weapon and 10,000 rounds of ammo, then my suitcase would have been “too heavy,” or I would have had to travel without “those shoes,” or I might have ended up spending some time in “that prison.”  Whatever.  What a vain coward I turned out to be!  (Shoes?  Srsly?  Jesus Haploid Christ.)  What I wouldn’t give now for a serviceable weapon and a giant suitcase full of heavy rounds, especially now that every five minutes or so I hear police sirens outside my window.

Oh, and hey Concierge d00d?  Could you please patch my calls through to where I’m hiding, under the bed?  Thanks ever so much.

The London Dispatches — Vol I.

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It’s time to reveal my Top Secret Mission:  I am in London on an exclusive investigative mission on behalf of the Palace and ShredofTruth.com, in search of the elusive answer to that most pressing of all questions:  WTF, motherfuckers?

I originally came in search of some Rupert Murdoch merriness, only to find London burning.  I’m not sure how much coverage this story is currently getting in the states now, but the violent riots here are spreading city-wide, and have eclipsed the worldwide financial shitstorm on the cover of almost every newspaper — including Murdoch’s The Times.  Last night, one masked thug was overheard saying “the West End is going down next,” which is just a wee bit troubling given (a) the location of my hotel, and (b) my pre-paid ticket to a show tomorrow evening.  Here is the Guardian’s home page this morning:

Holy $#!+!  WTF?!

The hard copy of The Guardian that was slipped under my door this morning has a map with tags pinpointing the locations of last night’s melees.  I am in the middle of it.

But Yours Truly remains undaunted!

In keeping with my sacred journalistic mission (i.e., “WTF, motherfuckers”), I endeavored to determine why there might just happen to be violent riots in London.  I read some of the coverage in daily newspapers.  The triggering event — the police shooting of civilian Mark Duggan — is reported through different editorial lenses in different papers.  As of this writing the forensics reports on bullets found at the scene indicate that all were police bullets.  This of course belies the official story that the police shot Mr. Duggan in self-defense, but to be fair, all the facts are not in yet.  Still, it is interesting that the paper edition of Murdoch’s The Times buries this little factoid deep into its otherwise front page reporting, while The Guardian puts it right up front.

Of all the reporting and opining on the riots that I’ve read, this column seems to be the most comprehensive and informed (if a little light on fact citations).

More on my Murdoch Mission to come.