I went to the BBC Good Food Show last Friday. I’d learned about it at a post-theater dinner with a lawyer from Judie’s office and her sister, who was working an Armenian food booth at the show whose big specialty was chocolate-covered dried fruit (delicious). The show was at a place called The Olympia in West Kensington. It had nothing to do with recent London Olympics. It is a series of big exhibition halls, the first of which was built in 1884 for covered agricultural shows. It was quite trek to the other side of London, but it is always fun to explore a new area and to extend my Underground knowledge. The show itself was about what you’d expect. Lots of booths, selling different sorts of food and expensive pots, pans and knives and lots of clever cooking gadgets (a few of which I got talked into buying and I am determined to use). Probably thanks to the incredible popularity of the Great British Bake-Off TV show on BBC, there was a huge area devoted to baking and cake decorating. There were classes on using fondant to create fancy cakes and all sort of related stuff and the place was mobbed with people of all ages and colors. I was half expecting to see the famous Nadiya (this year’s winner) signing autographs or explaining how to make some intricate dessert (maybe I was just there the wrong day). What I didn’t realize until it was almost time to leave was that on the mezzanine of this huge place, there were at least twenty wine tasting booths. It was probably just as well. I still went to three or four of them and met Oz Clarke, a famous English wine writer, and bought a case of New Zealand wine. The booths were divided by importer or by country (including Brazil–who knew that they make wine there.) While I was wandered around, I learned that flapjacks in England have nothing to do with pancakes and are instead a sort of glorified large granola bar made of oats, butter, brown sugar and “golden syrup” and seem to come with icing (which I’m willing to be they call something else here). I also joined the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which is somewhere between the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy. I also was proselytized by the Campaign for Real Ale (I may join) and tasted organic beers and obscure single malts.

It is the beginning of the flu season and we learned that flu shots (and all other injections) are called “jabs” here. Does a “jab” sound less painful or scary than a “shot”? At the very least, I’d say it is a better description of what is being done to you.

Last week, we saw the last “Lewis” episode. The left a little wiggle room for Lewis to return, perhaps in a cameo in a subsequent series focused on his partner, Sargeant Hathaway? We had recently been watching the early “Inspector Morse” shows, which featured a very young Kevin Whately as Detective Sergeant Robbie Lewis. So we’ve seen both ends of it and saw the growth of Lewis as a nuanced character. I will miss him, but Whately is getting older and he may have decided it is time. I was much sadder to see this series end than I was to say goodbye to “Downton Abbey”.

How much pomp and circumstance is too much? I suppose there is something very “British” about it and it is sort of fun. But at the same time, there is something that is a little creepy about these ostentatious displays of unearned wealth. And I’m not sure that most normal Londoners pay much attention to it at all. I wonder what the demographics of the spectators are at these events. We are thinking of going to Royal Ascot next July, which I think we have to do just for the sake of “My Fair Lady” alone. But what about the “Trooping of the Colors” in June? It is a hot ticket and, like Wimbledon, mere mortals must send in a letter and try to get tickets by lottery (which they call a ballot here). It is another spectacle and we will probably have visitors around then who would like to go. But I am wondering when (not really if) I am just going to get sick of it all. I am already done with the various Princes and Princesses.

To conclude: we bump into British bureaucracy again. We finally had a call with an accountant about the taxes that we need to pay here. We specifically wanted to know about paying something by the end of the calendar year since it results in a credit against US taxes. We were told that we probably cannot get a tax ID number by the end of the year. I was sunned, since in the US, you can go on-line with the IRS (which is never at the cutting edge of technology), and get a tax number in about five minutes. Even if they don’t have an online application here, you would think you could bring in the application and passport and proof of address to a Post Office and get it on the spot. Nope. It is a country of queues to stand in.