Virtual Reality

A highlight of my overseas trip was attending the amazing Abba Voyage concert at the breath-taking and specially designed Abba Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London.

Described by the Guardian Newspaper as “a dazzling retro-futurist extravaganza” the concert was a step back in time for me, as I’ve always loved Abba music.

And going forward, it’s a certainty that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to transform not just the music and film industry, but every aspect of our lives.

After the concert, our group crossed over to the Snoozebox at https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/snoozebox-stratford.en-gb.html for a few hours of after-party fun.

It was a whirlwind few days after I returned from Ireland, fitting in last minute visits with friends and making trips into the West End.

Our Saturday night trip to the concert with Judie Tzuke https://www.tzuke.com/and Beverley Craven at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields was a great experience.

As noted by Wikipedia, St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, there has been a church on the site since at least the medieval period.

It was certainly an impressive venue, and we enjoyed a meal in the cafe in the crypt underneath before the concert. This was especially welcome, as we had tried to get into many cafes in Leicester Square but being Saturday night it was impossible without a reservation.

The day before I left London was amazing as Deb took a day off work and we went by train and underground to Spitalfields and Leadenhall Markets in East London.

After a fabulous day exploring both markets and having an amazing lunch, we walked to the Tower of London and caught an Uber boat to Westminster.

Big Ben has been given a thorough clean and some of the London taxis have had a metamorphosis. No longer only in funereal black it’s great to see them in bright colours.

Big Ben has had a real clean-up.

Our very congenial taxi driver took us the long way back to Euston Station past Buckingham Palace just so that I could say that I had seen it this time around!

He certainly knew his way around London as we travelled through so many back streets I’d never seen before on the way back to Euston!

And how about this for originality – the amazing herd of 21 elephants in Spitalfields — one adult and 20 orphaned juveniles. These are bronze elephants, sculptures to raise awareness of elephant poaching in Africa by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

Only in England!