You Won't Care About Most of This but, Gurl Look At That Hair! (I'm Sexy and I Know It!)

Time for another quick break from the Paris narrative!

This morning, courtesy of Groupon and my wonderful mother, I went on another walking tour—and this one was a lot less gruesome than the Jack the Ripper tour from a few weeks back! 

The topic of this morning’s walkabout was Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, and (as I’m sure you all know by now) I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. There weren’t many details about what we would be looking at or where we were going, but participants were promised that it would highlight

the best, the worst, the most fascinating and the most worrying moments of the life of Queen Elizabeth II in honour of her Diamond Jubilee. We see where she was born, some memorable locations and some of her favourite places as well as discuss her successes and achievements during her long reign.  She has had her ups and her annus horribilis; she has seen changes more far-reaching than any monarch and has handled this with dignity and poise. (Coutours Website)

That was enough to rope me in, so off I went…

NB: Most of you will probably find this boring as all-get-out. Nic was actually laughing he was so bored. But it’s my blog and, damn it, I’ll write what I want to!

So, we met near the Bond Street tube station, which is a bit north of Buckingham Palace (near Soho, actually), and then proceeded to walk about ½ mile down Davies street. En route, we paused near Claridge’s, which Emma—our guide—informed us was home to various deposed and exiled (and just visiting) monarchs from other countries in the earlier part of the 20^th Century, particularly after World War I. 

NB: This photo is not mine!

Emma further explained that Claridge’s was/is the setting for most of the ‘thank you’ banquets hosted by visiting heads of state (following the banquets hosted by Her Majesty), because most embassies do not have adequate security for such functions.

Now, I don’t know how much I trust this little tidbit—if she had said it was because the embassies weren’t large enough to accommodate the large parties I might have been less skeptical. But security concerns? at the embassy? at a time where the head of the corresponding nation is visiting? Sounds sketchy to me…

 

At any rate, it was also while standing in front of Claridge’s that Emma began telling us about the current queen’s grandparents’ (King George V and Queen Mary) efforts to distance themselves from their Germanic links during the WWI era. Such efforts included dropping the family surname of ‘Saxe-Cobourg Gotha’ in favor of the more English-sounding ‘Windsor.’ Similarly, King George and Queen Mary largely did away with the old (German) matrimonial restrictions, which eventually allowed for their son—and England’s future king—Bertie to marry (then-)Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, (then-)Princess Elizabeth to marry PrincePhilip, and Prince William to marry Catherine 'Kate' Middleton. Finally, Emma told us a bit about King George and Queen Mary’s roles in setting the standard for present-day monarchical expectations.

(For the record, it was also around this time that she stopped over-explaining things to this li’l ol’ American, because I pointed out that I was in the midst of Pope-Hennessy’s ginormous biography of Queen Mary, and that I had already finished comparable ones for Queens Victoria and Alexandra and the Queen Mum.)

From Claridge’s, we continued down Davies until we hit Berkeley Square, and then we hung a left on to Bruton Street for our first ‘official’ stop: 17 Bruton Street.

Though the original home no longer stands (it was bombed during WWII), this Mayfair address is where Queen Elizabeth II was born on 21 April 1926. At the time of (then-)Princess Elizabeth’s birth via c-section, 17 Bruton Street belonged to her maternal grandparents. 

The street as seen in 1904. (NB: This is not my picture!)

Today it’s a nightclub and is next door to a Bentley dealership. But there is a plaque that marks the spot on the wall of said-club…it’s above the sectioned-off smokers section. *SMDH*

Now, a quick note about the pictures in this entry. Most of them are not mine, simply because there wasn’t too much worth snappin’ pix of. So, for illustrative purposes I’ve included a couple of corresponding images I found on the web. There you have it…

Moving on, quite literally across the street: the former shop of Norman Hartnell. Within the walls of this shop, Hartnell designed dresses for famous figures such as Merle Oberon, Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, and—most importantly for my purposes (excepting, maybe, Oberon)—the eventual Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, and Queen Elizabeth II. 

Perhaps the best-known of Hartnell’s designs was the wedding dress he created for Her Majesty:

NB: This photo is not mine!

 After discussing Her Majesty’s wedding for a bit, we continued on down Bruton Street and made our way over to the Royal Arcade on Old Bond Street, which houses the queen’s official chocolatier—complete with Royal Warrant above the register, Royal Seal affixed to the window, and the queen’s portrait above the preparation area. This was all by way of getting us to Bond Street proper. Now, I have to say: this is definitely another of those areas of town where I do not fit. I mean, fer realz. (Though the Louis Vuitton store—see here—sure was beautiful to look at!) Then it was a quick right onto Grafton and a left onto Albemarle.

It was on the corner of Grafton and Albemarle that we found Garrard & Co.’s jewelry shop. The significance of Garrard’s is that, for many years, they were responsible for the creation and maintenance of the Crown Jewels—including the iconic ‘little’ crown worn by Queen Victoria in so many images. 

(NB: This is not my photo!)

Unfortunately for them, they also seemed to have a knack for ticking off Queen Elizabeth II. (Or so-said our guide.) The first hiccup in their relationship was immediately following the wedding of Prince Charles and (then-)Lady Diana Spencer, when Garrard’s decided to sell exact replicas of Diana’s wedding ring—which they had the plans for because they had designed it. The next hiccup came when they hired Jade Jagger (Mick’s daughter) as their creative director, and she started steering the company in a different direction. And a third hiccup occurred when they hired Christina Aguilera as the ‘face’ of Garrad & Co. As a result, in 2007 a statement was released by Buckingham Palace that Garrad’s services were ‘no longer required’ and a new Crown Jeweler was announced. (Jagger was also fired shortly thereafter.) Ouch.

Leaving Garrad’s behind, we trekked over to St James’s Palace, followed by quick stops to Lancaster House, Clarence House, St James’s Park, and finally Westminster Abbey. Since I’ve talked about all of those places before—and didn’t really learn anything new here—I won’t go into any further details with those.

Other random things I saw today, however, included James Lock & Co., where the first Bowler Hat was created (but which you should order using the name ‘Coke Hat’ [pronounced ‘Cook’]); White’s, which is one of—if not the—oldest Gentlemen’s clubs in London, and which counts the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles amongst its members (NB: there have only ever been two occasions whereupon a woman was allowed entrance to White’s—both times it was Queen Elizabeth, and she had to be granted permission by special vote.); Hunter Boots, the official boot makers of the Duke (and possibly the Queen too); the former site of Texas’ Embassy (from its brief time of independence—according to our guide, the king was still smarting over the American Revolution, and so he gladly threw his support behind Texas’ attempts at remaining independent…I sure as hell wish he’d fought harder!); and, in that same courtyard, supposedly the site of the very last duel fought in London.

Okay, I’m sure you’re all bored to tears by now. In fact, even I was a bit bored there toward the end of writing this out. But it really was fun, you’ll just have to take my word for it!

One final note: after leaving behind the tour, I made my way over to nearby Soho where I finally got mah hair and eyebrows did! YAY! Thank you, Youssef from Groovy Hair Salon, for being both within my price range and giving me a look that Nic has referred to as ‘brash and Euro!’