London remained dry .... or at least dryish ..... during our stay.
The Post Office Tower - that super thin and super tall symbol of 1960's England - has been sold off to a developer and is to be converted into a luxury hotel. A more impractical building for a hotel would be hard to imagine. Circular buildings rarely if ever have the ideal floor plan for hotel use. Lots of window area ( good ) with the bed and bathroom squeezed in at the dark, tapered end ( bad and very bad ). Perhaps, now the military has taken down the microwave dishes, the rotating restaurant on the top will re-open ? As a nine year old Angus remembers the disappointment of discovering that the restaurant rotated so slowly that its movement was imperceptible. He had been hoping for something more adrenalin packed. There was something similar on the top floor of the Peachtree Hotel in Atlanta in the 1970's but I assume that it too has closed. New York never had one - or if it did we never found it. In the intervening years the whole concept of rotating while dining seems to have died a natural - and perhaps well justified - death.
This is - I think - reassuring :https://gizmodo.com/bird-avian-flu-outbreak-health-risks-pandemics-1851382572
Havana Syndrome again :https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/60-minutes-episode-on-havana-syndrome-is-tabloid-journalism/
Would Carrie shock todays teenagers ? :https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/carrie-50-anniversary-stephen-king-debut-history-b2520193.html#Echobox=1711952354
19 comments:
Scented sweet peas at this time of year - what a wonderful find.
My first reaction to the linking of Russians to 'Havana Syndrome ' was to wonder why they would bother, having apparently abandoned Cuba is almost every other way?
Hari Om
What you see is what you get with
Mud. They opened in Sydney in the mid-naughties I seem to recall. You could think of it as Scandi-scantness applied to porcelain homeware. Hooroo frae Tayport... St A at the weekend to visit the Iran exhibition, finally. YAM xx
Well done for resisting the temptation to pop into the French patisserie and buy a few goodies. I don't think I could have resisited the lure!
I think the toothpaste is too high on fluorides to be prescription free.
Grüße aus Bayern
Barbara
We were taken to a revolving restaurant in Vancouver in the 1980s. The food was superb, the views spectacular and the price - probably stratospheric!
I've been to two revolving restaurants, both unfortunately as an adult. The first, in the New Otani Tokyo, has been through many iterations, but it seems it has now been relaunched as the Sky: https://www.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/restaurant/sky/. The second was at the top of a hotel connected to the airport terminal at Tampa where we stayed the night before a very early flight back to Tokyo. It was my daughter's birthday - she was probably 9 or 10 - and the hotel was kind of crummy, so we felt bad. But then we discovered the revolving restaurant, what's more it was a revolving sushi restaurant. We had a wonderful time spinning slowly above the runways and were sad to read about a year later that the restaurant had closed for good.
The Signature Room in the former John Hancock Building in Chicago closed last year due to economic hardship. Such lovely views of Lake Michigan and the city's skyline, especially when the sun was setting.
The Space Needle here in Seattle still has a restaurant at the top. I think I ate there once years ago. When something is so near one tends to overlook it.
There is still a slowly rotating restaurant overlooking the Penatgon and Washington DC https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/dcaaedt-doubletree-washington-dc-crystal-city/dining/ I had to check and see if it had reopened, it moves very slowly. Let me know when you are in DC, I'll buy you a drink.
Love the window shopping! The doctor I work for just returned from a family trip to France - The family enjoyed their time there, and he really enjoyed the bakeries!
Good for your dentist to find room in their schedule for you. We also do our best to do the same, especially when patients come from a distance like you do. And I have to add that the toothpaste was probably prescribed because it has more fluoride in it. As you know, here in the US city water is fluoridated - But patients whose water isn't, like ours (we're on a well) or they drink a lot of bottled water, which also doesn't have it, we prescribe a toothpaste, and do a fluoride treatment -- Gotta keep those teeth strong!
Kim at Golden - Thank you for the insight. Ageing teeth are prone to cracking !
The first picture was a blast from the past for me Angus. I worked for City & Guilds of London Institute in the 1960s and my office window was just across from the Post Office Tower. Interesting to read about the change of use to a luxury hotel.
Wendy (Wales)
OK, based on the skeptic's assessment of the 60 Minute segment on the Havana Syndrome, which I had watched and found credible, I must have fallen prey to National Enquirer style of yellow journalism. A naive sucker? Or someone who still wonders why so many, including the government, are so eager to say it doesn't exist?
Jake of F - This may be the bast take so far :https://www.fpri.org/article/2024/04/havana-syndrome-the-history-behind-the-mystery/
You'll be pleased to know Atlanta's Polaris still turns.
https://www.polarisatlanta.com
x
Pamela - I think the view from the top floor might have changed a little since I was last there in 1977. Did Buckhead exist then ?
So does the 360 restaurant on top of the CN tower in Toronto, and I am told it does good business. Perhaps the concept is not so outdated after all.
The Fraisier looks very tempting.
Thanks for this article. It adds to my sense that we're supposed to disregard what we're seeing. But enough said...back to the joys of your lovely world.
I'm not sure you'd have much of a view now, apart from seeing inside the windows of much taller buildings . But there are those who would tell you there's always been a Buckhead. xx
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