Score One for Britain!

Season 4 of Downton Abbey debuted tonight!  It won't air in the US until January 2014, so I feel like I got a sneak peak.  It almost makes up for the fact that I won't be able to watch the Emmy's.

Don't worry, no spoiler alerts here.  Just a few things I noted that have nothing to do with the storyline:

1) Lady Mary has some hairstyles that look like Princess Leia buns.  Not sure if that is a grieving hairstyle, but it was weird.

2) Still love Daisy.

3) Tom (Lady Sybil's hubby) looks puffy.

4) Lady Edith wears some beautiful dresses.  Lady Mary's all in mourning, so I'm sure her dresses are pretty too, but Lady Edith's dresses have color.  Her green dress from when she went to dinner out in London was beautiful.

5) Still love Maggie Smith's character (her character's title is too wordy).

6) I love the fact that I could tell that Lady Edith was outside St. Pancras Hotel just by the bricks in the background.  

Like I said, no spoiler alerts, but I will say it was worth it.  

In an interesting tidbit, there is a bit of real-life drama going on over here because Lady Carnarvon of Highclere Castle (where Downton Abbey is filmed) has published a blog (those damn bloggers) that is dissing the show for certain inaccuracies.  It's causing a bit of drama because Highclere Castle was on the verge of bankruptcy 4 years ago.  Being that the inaccuracies are things like how the table is set, I think I would keep my mouth shut so as not to tick off Julian Fellowes.  Just sayin...

On the Catwalk...Yeah, on the Catwalk

It was London Fashion Week this week.  

Not being particularly fashionable, but certainly intrigued by it, I scored a ticket to one of the catwalk shows.  The ticket I got was more ghetto than if I was a celebrity, designer, or model, but it was something.  

The show was at Somerset House, which is a big exhibit hall along the Thames.  For those following my blatherings on this blog, Somerset was the site of the Valentino exhibit.  The ticket I had enabled me to shop in some of the pop-up boutiques they had set up within Somerset House.  The designers varied from Versace to Levi's with a bunch of new designers thrown in the mix and the range of items from clothes, to shoes, to bags, to jewelry.  Anyone who knows me knows that I've got a weakness for jewelry.  I'm a sucker for all sorts of jewelry.  While I found some cool stuff, I didn't find anything worthy of splurging.  

After shopping, they had a fashion show.  The theme of the show was "Trends" and it highlighted 4 key trends for fall/winter.  (In case you are dying to know what those are, they were pink, nature, graphic prints and Victorian.)  The show highlighted pieces from a number of different designers and while some of the outfits were cool, I noticed a number of things:

1) The models were not pretty.  Yes, I realize they are supposed to be clothes hangars, but would it kill them to find someone who didn't look like she had been smacked in the face with the mean stick?  They were all fairly plain looking, but they also looked angry and/or depressed.  What is up with that?

2) They were all modeling the "wet look".  To me, it looked like they all had greasy roots and split ends.  Bad, bad look.

3) Some of the models weren't fitted very well and you could see their underwear (and not in an intentional way).  It was a bit disappointing.  You would have thought that the models would have at least worn the proper undergarments.  Just saying.

4) There were quite a number of kids in the audience.  And by kids, I mean teenagers, although I did notice quite a few little kids while I was wandering around the shops.  In the picture below, the girl in the white top on the bottom left corner was only about 12 years old and she was *super* into the whole scene.  Totally not me at that age.  I still wish there was Garanimals for adults.

After the finale of the four trends, they showed a video of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's photo shoot for Elle magazine.  For those that don't know, Rosie is a British model.  The only reason I know her is because she dates Jason Statham (hottie from the Transporter series of movies).  

After the Rosie video, they had an interview with some British fashion person.  I'm so at a disadvantage because I don't know any of the British celebrities or fashion people (other than the obvious ones that have crossed over the pond).

I found it interesting that the British fashion person (I'm going to call her Helen b/c I can't remember her name) was going on an on about how certain British designers have "come back" to London Fashion Week.  It was quite obvious that there was a feeling of insecurity or something akin to that radiating from Helen and the host of the show.  Apparently, a lot of designers have started out in London and then abandoned the city for New York, Paris, and Milan.  Helen put out an appeal to Victoria Beckham to come back to London.  She was practically begging.  It was interesting to see that some people in London have a "second city" mentality.  

A Little Activism and a Little Singing

Don't worry --- it wasn't me singing.  

First, the activism piece: Greenpeace had an event to bring awareness to the environment changes that are going on in the Arctic and how those changes impact the animals that live there ---- more specifically, the polar bears.  As part of the event, they held a parade that started at Westminster and went through the streets to Jubilee Gardens.  The main attraction to the parade was a thing called "Aurora".  I say "thing" because it wasn't a float.  It was a giant mechanical polar bear.  That's right -- a mechanical polar bear.  

Aurora

The thing was huge ---- it was the size of the a doubledecker bus, but it wasn't motorized.  It seemed to operate by people picking up the legs of polar bear.  I don't know how you got that lousy job.  If you look closely at this picture, you can see the woman at the top of it.  You could enter to win an opportunity to ride in it for a while.  I was pretty content to just watch the thing walk by.

I cut in front of Aurora to book it over to the Tower Bridge area later that afternoon.  Thankfully, I'm pretty quick in the boot and Aurora was a bit slow.

The city has been celebrating the Thames for the past few weeks.  There have been boat shows, street festivals, etc.  On this particular afternoon, there was a choir celebration.  I missed the 600 children's choir because Aurora was rerouted due to high winds (damn polar bear).  I did make the 800 person choir.

Choir at the Scoop

It was pretty cool to hear all of them singing "Moon River" in the shadow of the Thames and the Tower of London.

Fair by choirs

Unfortuntately, as it happens a lot here lately, the rain came and put a damper on things.  If I didn't have the boot and run the risk of walking around the rest of the day with a wet sock, I would have stayed around and listened for the rest of the afternoon.  Well, a little bit of culture was better than none.