1953...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Splinterheart
1000 Robota - Hamburg Brennt EP
Borodin - Symphonies 1-3
Sparks - Womp That Sucker
Uriah Heep - Easy Livin' Singles As and Bs

Up at 4am and ready to roll for my trip to London with Dr Prog…

Drove over to pick up him up at 4:45 then back to the bottom of Crispycat Hill to catch a bus to the airport…

Checked in quickly since we were hand luggage only and a quick breakfast at Eat…

An hour’s flight...



...and we arrived at Stanstead just before 7:30, hopping on the transfer bus an hour earlier than originally booked…

Downside was, it took two hours to get to Liverpool St Station due to the London rush hour…

With the hotel being in Hackney and earliest check-in being 2pm, we bought day tickets for the Underground and headed to Oxford Circus, giving us easy access to the record shops of Soho…

From Sister Ray, your correspondent partook of the only Sparks CD not in his collection (“Womp That Sucker” – checking with the Exec Producer back home by text afterwards that this was indeed the case)…

And, from nearby second hand emporium, Revival, an EP by German punks 1000 Robota, including a fine cover of Palais Schaumburg’s “Wir bauen eine neue Stadt”, a disc of Borodin Symphonies and, in honour of this weekend’s ProgFest, a 2CD set of Uriah Heep singles (probably all of which I have somewhere already)…

Dr Prog refrained from indulging…

Over to Neil Street and a fine little eatery for lunch, where the Doc made up for his non-CD layout by ordering the most expensive dish on offer and then adding some chocolate cake for pudding and proclaiming it to be the best chocolate cake in the world…



Then, on to Covent Garden for a browse around, before taking the Tube out to Bethnal Green and a brief walk to our hotel – initially heading in completely the wrong direction due to an erroneous park…

Following a bit of a stramash at check-in, with me insisting I’d already paid – when I hadn’t in fact paid a bean thus far - and them trying to charge me another £20 and then finally accepting the rate they’d quoted when I booked, Dr Prog had a snooze, while I listened to my new CDs…



Then, up and out again and, using the mainline Cambridge Heath Station to get to Liverpool St, we were soon outside St Paul’s Cathedral and heading over the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern…



We spent a good three hours or so just wandering around enjoying the delights on display, my favourite moment being when I walked round a corner to find these pieces by Franz Kline and Clyfford Still…



The balcony is Dr Prog's favourite place in London...



As a result of our arty enjoyment, we missed the opportunity of a guided pub crawl along the banks of the Thames and, instead, ended spending the evening in just one pub, drinking too many pints of beer after a very tasty portion of fish and chips each…



A tube, a train and a short walk took us back to the hotel, where I discovered to my horror that there is indeed someone in the world who snores louder than I do…

Highlight of the Day : Tate Modern…