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Finally, after much delay, I’m going to start posting the journal of my recent trip to London. I’ll warn you, the first two days or so worth of entries are rather bland as it’s mostly business, but it does pick up some. I’ll be posting another chapter of this daily for the next week around Noon Pacific time for those who are interested.

Without further delay, let’s begin.

My trip began on the afternoon of Wednesday June 1st, approximately 3:30 in the afternoon. That’s when I arrived at LAX. Check in went fine, as did the security check, but LAX is without a doubt one of the dumber airports when it comes to security. The security staff are wholly unpleasant people, clearly fed up with their lives and looking to take it out on every traveler that comes through. There’s a very unnecessary attitude that they adopt. When compared to security in London or Montreal or any other country I’ve visited outside of the United States, well, US security efforts are just embarrassing.

I should mention the purpose of this trip was to visit the set of “V For Vendetta” in London. The film comes out in November and stars Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. I had my trip extended an extra two days to spend some quality time in London. I return home on Monday the 6th of June.

The flight out of Los Angeles went out at the right time. I’m not quite sure how, but the majority of times I fly I end up sitting next to an older woman. And generally she wants to show me pictures of her grand children. It’s happened numerous times. So, when two elderly women sat next to me on the flight, I wasn’t at all surprised. What was, though, were these two proper British women, one in her 60s the other, her mother, in her 80s, were a very nice lot who had some interesting perspectives about the states. They had spent a month traveling around the western part of the US and wholly loved it. They found San Francisco to be fantastic, San Diego beautiful, Santa Barbara amazing and Los Angeles intimidating because of its sprawl. They were surprised by the absolute lack of public transpo in our city. So are its own citizens, I told her.

They were also completely surprised by the Carls Jr. ad featuring Paris Hilton chowing down on a burger while she washes a car half nude. They couldn’t believe that ad was shown on the air. “What a slapper,” one woman said of Paris Hilton. I actually never learned their names. It’s odd the temporary friends you make on a lengthy flight.

The flight itself was very smooth. Surprisingly devoid of turbulence. I happened to score a seat at the front of economy, on the aisle, so I was more comfortable than I usually am on a flight. I had plenty of leg room, but the chair was still as uncomfortable as ever. Although being at the front of economy meant being at the back of business class. No where else in the world but on an international flight is the war of the classes more evident. I mean, come on, those business class fucks get their rolls served to them in a wicker basket. What, us jagoffs in economy don’t deserve wicker baskets, too? Fuck them.

I’ve heard and read often of the success author Dan Brown’s books have had with the jet setting crowd. The guy four seats down from me was reading that “Angels & Prophecies” book, clearly a recent purchase as he was at the beginning of the book. He probably bought it at the airport. I instantly took a disliking to him. Not for any good reason, naturally.

Eating on an airplane, your in flight meal as it were, is simply an exercise in maintaining equilibrium. The box-lunch meal they serve is barely passable and if served in the real world no one of sound mind and free will would openly choose it. Of course, there is something quite novel about compartmentalized food, but they did that already in “Fight Club,” so I’ll end that discussion there.

I should mention that I absolutely love flying, though. For me, it’s a very romantic experience. Not in that “Oh, I love you so, baby baby, let’s hump” kind of way. When flying I tend to get a lot of good thinking done. A clarity begins to set in right after the rush of take off has died. This flight was no different. I read again the graphic novel “V For Vendetta,” which I read once before about 10 years ago but had almost completely forgotten. That kept me occupied for about 2.5 hours or so. I read a number of other magazines and scripts I brought with me. I tend to like to bring throw away reading material when I travel. It means its just one less thing I have to bring back. I also found I did a lot of writing on the flight out. I’d say a good two or three hours worth. I was very happy about that.

I can’t sleep when I fly. That’s a problem when you have a 10 hour plus flight and an 8 hour time jump. The seats in economy class aren’t engineered with sleeping in mind. I tried, but it just wasn’t happening. Well, not until there was only 20 minutes left in the flight and I was awakened by the landing of the plane. That’s annoying. Thank God for the iPod, though, or else I’d go nuts.

Why is it hard for me while flying not to think of the plane disaster scenes in “Fight Club” or “Lost?” That’s not a good thing.

While I do love to fly, it’s also true that there aren’t that many truly normal moments on a flight. The food isn’t normal. The movies aren’t normal, either, as most are often quite literally “edited the fuck out of.” Even then, I’ve either seen most of the film selections or don’t care about the ones offered. But there is always one moment, one function that you can take part in that is completely normal, that can be relied upon with incredible frequency: the in flight shit.

Now, I don’t mean to be rude or ribald here, but it really is quite true. There’s something very satisfying about taking a shit at 40,000 feet. The idea that you’re essentially shitting on those beneath you is one that should be seized upon by all fliers during lengthy flights. Or at least it’s a way to kill 20 minutes of an 10-11 hour flight.

Once I landed at Heathrow I took the Heathrow Express to Paddington station, then picked up a Taxi to the Trafalgar Hilton hotel in Trafalgar Square, a stones throw from the National Museum, Buckingham Palace and Lecster Square. This was actually a total waste of money. I was told by the hotel they were a good 10 minute walk from the nearest tube station and I figured with three heavy bags, I didn’t want to be bothered with that. Of course, once I arrived at the hotel I discovered there’s a tube station about 30 seconds away from the hotel. Bastards.

As I entered the lobby of the hotel at #2 Spring Gardens I was greeted by the sounds of a keyboardist playing and singing “Killing Me Softly.” What the fuck? The lobby of the hotel is mostly a bar, with a small side area that serves as your check in place. The lobby is very much not a traditional hotel lobby and more like some Hollywood club with trendy design and style. There’s a large bar, with a generous seating area. The front desk was literally a table with four computers on it. That’s it. The best comparison I could make would be to Los Angeles’ Standard Hotel, only with an English accent.

I made my way to my second story room. It’s small. Much smaller than the room I had during my last visit. While a nice room, it’s quite unremarkable. The bed was comfy.

I unpacked, hooked my computer up to the Internet and checked my e-mail and was happy to discover nothing had blown up during my travels. It was also the moment I discovered my first casualty of my visit– the Internet (VoIP) phone I brought with me doesn’t work with the Hotel’s broadband. Bastards. The fuckers got smart (or snarky) and appear to have specifically blocked the ports necessary to make a connection. The management of this hotel is now on my list.

Once I stopped fiddling with the tech, I got a quick lunch on the Strand, then zonked out for six hours of much needed sleep.

I woke up around 9:00 PM in London, had a “shit, shower and a shave” (thank you Tyres of “Spaced”) and made my way downstairs to the restaurant, which is located right underneath the lobby/bar, which has now been turned into something of a night club. The sounds of the lobby, filled with the new bohemians, spilled down into the restaurant as a DJ spun club music. Everyone there was dressed to the nines, but they almost didn’t seem completely real. It was as if the hotel had hired cool London to visit tonight.

The hotel restaurant really is quite good and served food Tapas style, which is kind of Spanish style dim sum. Small portions, so you order numerous items. I went for the six-course meal, about 50 pounds or so, which translates to around $100 American. Thank God for our trip allowance. The food was quite excellent. I got some tuna/scallops thing, a beef thing and some lobster thing and some other stuff I’ve since forgotten. The tuna/scallops was definitely the best of the lot.

Once the meal was finished, it was time to meet the Warner Bros. crew and make our way to 1 Whitehall Place to assemble for the set visit. This is where I must skip ahead a bit as the report of my set visit is embargoed and will eventually end up over on Comic Book Resources. I’ll link to it when it’s ready. That being said, our set visit finished at around 4:00 in the morning as the sun began to rise in London. I had no idea that during the summer they only get about 6 hours of night. Conversely, that means during winter they only get about 6 hours of light.

That’s all you get this chapter. Just the traveling and business I can’t talk about yet. The actual “trip” part of this trip will being in tomorrow’s entry, sometime around Noon eastern time.