From London to New York; Planning the Perfect Holiday Adventure

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Hi, I'm Debbie Travis, and I'm Tommy Smythe, and this is, trust me, I'm a decorator. Hello, Debbie Travis, hello, Tommy Smythe. You know, it's only a few weeks until the big day. I'm already panicking.

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Well, I love Christmas, but I thought one of the things, apart from Christmas Day, that people really, really love is the build up to Christmas and the shopping and the Christmas lights and everything. And every year, the top two cities in the world are London and New York, which happen to be, I think our favorite cities. You love New York. You spend a lot of time there. And I love London. But nobody loves London more than me. You should be the Tourist Board ambassador for that city, and it's not such an expensive holiday. So you might be thinking, you know where you're going to go to Cuba or something you know next year, but maybe think of putting your dollars into something of pre Christmas, which really starts kind of November, doesn't it and goes all the way through. Might be for this year, might be for next year. I know so many people going, even with small kids, this year, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite places that aren't necessarily on the tourist guide, and then you can share New York, because you know New York much better than me. But I want to start with a new hotel that I was lucky enough to stay in a few months ago, and this hotel I found very emotional, because it's on the street that I lived for a while when I first moved to London when I was very young last week. And there's actually a story in the new book laugh Moore. There's a story about our landlord and me and my girlfriend on this street. So one of the most famous streets in London is called the King's Road. And the King's Road was iconic for, you know, the 60s, all the bands and everything used to go down there and fashion, Mary quants and everything. And then, of course, late 70s, it became famous for the punk rockers vivid Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. Westwood, Malcolm McLaren and you know, all the Mohicans and the safety pins and all that. And people would bring their families to watch the the parades of the punks, which see nothing today compared to so shocking then, um, so at the end of the Kings Road, at one end, one end is, which you know very well, is all the designer shops. So that's new Kings Road, but the Kings Road begins in Sloan square. Off. Sloan square is Sloan Street. Sloan Street is famous for high end stores like the Pradas and the Chanel and things like that. Well, and all the posh young people in London who used to hang out there used to be called the Sloan Rangers. And I always tell everyone that Debbie Travis was the original Sloan Ranger. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, I was never from that. So lady dye was the ultimate Sloan Ranger. So these were people who came from aristocratic families. And actually that reminds me, because I I'm going to blush now I'm watching rivals, which, oh, my God, oh good, oh, my god. It's so rude, Full Frontal men, gosh, good that. Well, I mean, I don't find that terribly rude.

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So rivals was a book that everybody read, but it was called riders, and it was dame, I think she said dame. Now, Julie Cooper wrote this many, many books, but this was a best seller, and it was about the Sloan rangers who spent time at their country estate. So this is what goes on in the countryside. And very rude, think it's on Disney plus, but it's really

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anyway, it'll get you all hot and bothered provocative. So Sloan square is full of cafes and bars and restaurants shops, and then all the way down the King's Road. Then there is lower Sloan Street and Sloan gardens. Sloan gardens was a or still is a red brick, kind of six, seven story terraced houses. And when I was about 18, my granny, I had nowhere to live, so my granny managed. She knew somebody who owned one of these houses. So this guy was called Dickie Leggett. He was cash poor. He had no money whatsoever. But he'd inherited this property. He'd started off dividing it up into like rooms, lodgings and things, but it couldn't even run that so the place was empty, and we, me and my girlfriend, lived in a little, tiny basement with a electric meter and the whole thing, and had the best time of our lives for a couple of years. But at the top of the street. I read in the paper earlier this year that one of the bigger mansions at the top, right next to the tube station in Sloan square, had opened as a hotel, and so I went and stayed there. Oh my gosh, I know the one that you're going to talk about. I've read about this.

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I've seen the pictures.

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It's amazing. Now it's not cheap, I will say that, but it's a treat. And for me, I spent two nights there, and it was absolutely amazing, but it's a throwback to the clubbing of they may not think of it like this, but like the bar and everything and all the hallways are the photographs of clubbing in the 70s and 80s in London. Isn't the hotel called at Sloan. At Sloan, it's one millimeter second across the road from the tube station. So you it's really, you're literally right there. You can go, they have a very good restaurant on the top floor, but going for a drink downstairs, it's all the rich velvets and, you know, reds and black and white floors and beautiful tile and cozy. It's what, what I really loathed in design, in the last kind of it's changing a bit now, but 20 years was they all went very minimalist restaurants and things tell me that's not why I go to a restaurant. I want the cozy and the the atmosphere. And they've brought all this back. And you could just spend an evening looking at the photos on the wall like I was looking to see if I could see myself in any of them. But, but it was all, you know, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Muhammad Ali, all these people behaving very badly in the clubs. So you can go in there and have a, you know, a nice cocktail at the end of the day. The reception was incredible, because it's like walking into a private home, and you go in and the whole ground floor is one giant. You will love it, Tommy, it's one gigantic table with all these gorgeous women on their iPads checking you in and stuff. And you know, I just spent some of my mornings just sitting talking to them. There's no it's not like walking into a normal hotel. So and then upstairs, they have on the on the roof, where you can see across, kind of Chelsea. They have a very, very good restaurant, and so beautiful, very bright and airy, not like, you know, clubby bit downstairs. So it's a wonderful place just to go for a drink, to go and hang out, or, if you can, to stay there. And yeah, so I want to say thank you to them, because I loved every minute of it. So the place at Sloan, I know that it's a bit of a splurge to stay in, but I also know that because I, again, I've been following this on Instagram a little bit because the design and decor, many of the accounts I follow that are about design and decor have really featured this place because it's so beautiful, but I wanted to say, you know, my trick with travel, especially in London, is if I can't afford to stay in the hotel, and it's still a bit of a splurge, I will book a dinner or a drink at the bar, and then you get to experience all of the design and decor elements, and you can wander around and see the Main lobbies and things. But you're not spending 400 pounds a night. You're spending maybe 100 pounds on drinks and snacks. And that's it, exactly, exactly. And you know, I think the holidays is something about indulgence, and I don't usually stay in hotels. Oh yes, yeah. But you know me, I don't stay in hotels in London because, you know, a good place there, but so this was a treat for me. I worked really hard this year. I was on my own,

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and I just thought, you know what? And oh, my god, the beds, the linens. I mean, I sound like I'm selling it, but it was just, I didn't actually want to go out. I wanted to just,

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I felt like I'd gone to a spa, you know, I just enjoyed being, you know, beautiful wardrobes, you know, made out of mahogany, and just the attention to detail, and also a million ideas for decor. So I actually my next house. I took so many photos because I want to take some ideas from this hotel. So that's called at Sloan. Where would you stay in New York, if you were treating yourself. So in New York. So the thing about Christmas in New York is, if you're ever going to do it, you should really do it in the traditional way. And so there's an area in New York which is basically Fifth Avenue, and it's in the 50s, up in the 50s. So 50th Street, 55th 57th 58th and I call it the Christmas cluster, because right in this one area where you can walk to absolutely everything. And of course, Christmas in New York is very busy, so the traffic can be terrible and cabs can be expensive. So if you go this little Christmas cluster has St Patrick's Cathedral, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Burke Dorf Goodman for shopping. It has central park with skating, Rockefeller Center with skating and the big Christmas tree and the big photo op at the Christmas tree right in Rockefeller Center. It used to be down the street, but now it's right in Rockefeller square. Is FAO Schwartz, the world famous toy store. So if you've got kids with you, then it moved because it was opposite. It moved. It's now in 30 rock so you can do almost everything that's Christmassy in New York City in one area of about five blocks, including Central Park, the southern part of Central Park, and of course, right at the southern part of Central Park is the plaza, and the plaza.

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Is the iconic hotel from home alone lost in New York, where, you know the famous Macaulay Culkin, where the family was staying. And finally, he, you know, he's by himself, and the family comes to find him. So the plaza is iconic, and you can go for tea at the Plaza. It's beautifully, magnificently decorated for Christmas. And if you stay there, and again, it's sort of, it's probably not as much of a splurge as that Sloan would be, but it's still a splurge. And that's the thing. If you're going to go, you want to go and do it, you know, absolutely what I call to the 10s, which is more than to the nines. And this area is very busy. I mean, you should be warned that it's incredibly busy with tourists. So if that's not your thing, you could also stay a little bit further downtown or a little bit further uptown at a different hotel. When I was there at Christmas. You know my mother, when she turned 70, my mother, Anne, had said, out of the blue, we sort of said to her mom, what do you want to do? It's a milestone birthday. Let's do something fun. And she said to my entire family, I guess it was in the summertime, because her birthday is on December the 10th.

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She said, You know, I'd like to go to New York and see all of the Christmas things. And I looked at her, and I said, You've been to New York a million times. How is it that you've never been at Christmas? And she said, Well, I haven't. I've actually never been at Christmas time, and I'd really love to go. So we booked a trip, and we decided not to be right in the huge, you know, tourist area at Fifth Avenue, but we went just a little bit north, and we stayed at the mark. Now, the mark is a big splurge. It's a very fancy hotel. It's where everyone stays for the Met Gala,

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but the Mark was wonderful because it has a great little bar, a beautiful Jean Georges restaurant. And across the street, of course, is Bemelmans bar in the Carlisle. So we stayed there, and then we just took taxis down to where the Christmas tree is, at Rockefeller Center, and to do our shopping at Saxon Burke dorfs And all of those fun Christmasy things go skating. And what happened was, even though it was only December the 10th, somehow, for some reason, while we were there, this enormous snowfall happened where the entire city was completely blanketed in fluffy, white snow. And that almost never happens in New York. You know, these days, with global warming and things, it doesn't really snow a lot in Manhattan anymore, and so it was so magical, like my mother and my stepfather went for a little

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there was like a little golf Carty thing that they had in the hotel that took them through the park to see the snow. I went walking around, and I came back with a snow hat on my head. It was going so hard that I had what looked like a Jackie Onassis pillbox hat on my head. Oh, wow. It couldn't have been a more magical Christmas experience for my mom. But it was interesting to stay a little bit out of the sort of the really big touristy Yeah, and when you went in, it was wall to wall, shoulder to shoulder. I mean, it's sort of like Bond Street, you know, you should talk about Bond Street, yeah? But just before that, you know, I think what's nice is to splurge on a fabulous hotel. And then the great thing about these two iconic cities is there's a lot of stuff that isn't expensive, absolutely, you can get in there, baby, yeah? So you can say it in other ways. And one of the things that's relatively new in the UK or in London is, you know, they're bringing the Thames back. So the Thames, hundreds of years ago, was the main artery through London, because the roads were mud and Stuart and Stuart, yeah, and so if you see drawings of what the Thames look like in the 15th century, 16th century, you could jump from boat to boat, because it was like a highway. And then it and then they stopped using it. And it's the fast way. So there is an Uber boat. An Uber boat, amazing. It really doesn't cost very much. I've done it. You've done it. So you don't call it Do you like an Uber car? There's different points. And you just Google where they pick up. You get on the boat, and you get a virtually free tour down the Thames. It's incredible. So the Thames cuts London in half life was built along the Thames. That's how they got so you see everything from there, you go right past parliament, you go past Big Ben, you go past the Tate Modern, you know the old tape, you go all the way along, and you can go all the way to Greenwich, which, yes, that's what I think. Yeah, so, and if you get a sunny day, it's a wonderful for a family. So that's something that doesn't cost very much. The other is, obviously the double decker busses, like I wouldn't be seen dead on a tourist open double decker bus. I take the bus everywhere. There the normal bus, because I like hopping on and off. And in London, you just get a card, and you just zap it one price, an Oyster card, and it takes you everywhere. So it's really inexpensive, and you get.

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To see London, where, if you're on the tube, you're underground, and taxis can be expensive. So that's that's a way of kind of saving. And I think the other thing that, of course, is free are the lights. Oh my gosh, what they do in Christmas lights is beyond. People come from all over the world to see the light. So you have the famous Bond Street, which, again, is the other street with all the fancy man she shops. But there's, it's like a pissing war of who has the most. So Louis Vuitton will have oversight suitcases with things jumping out of them. Chanel, you know, Chanel, I remember last a couple of years ago, I think I was with you, they had pearls the size of their truck and hanging

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outside, and it's just packed with people taking photos. So that's a wonderful way. And take the bus, you know, down Bond Street with your kids at nine o'clock at night and just see it all. And then you go to Regent Street, which has become they started these angels a few years ago, and now they keep them up because they're so popular, the trumpeting angels, oh, all the way down. So Regent Street is named after Prince Regent, who built in the Regency period, built these white, seven, eight story mansions. And Regent Street is obviously a main street with lots of shops and stuff, and it's a big curve. It's a couple of miles long. Yeah, I think it was Sir Christopher Wren, who was the architect, I think. But it's during the Regency period. So at one end you've got Oxford Street, stay away from Oxford Street, but and then the and then at the other end you've got the famous Piccadilly. And then, of course, you can from Piccadilly. You've got the theater district, but you've also got Soho, so you can walk through Soho, and there's every type of food you could ever imagine. So not necessarily expensive. No, they've got burgers, and everything from burgers to fine dining on Compton street, on old Compton Street, exactly, and then beautiful has bar Italia, like wonderful places, yeah. But then what? A lot of people who are listening may not know there is a place. I'm sure people have heard of Kew Gardens. So Kew Gardens is outside London, but it is one of the most important botanical gardens in the world for discovering the science of new plants and all this kind of stuff and rare specimens. So you can take the tube all the way to Q, and they do a light display that, oh yes, will rock your socks. You need to book it early. It starts mid November, till, I think, first, second week of January. And of course, you go and it's dark, so after five o'clock, so you go to queue on the train. You don't take a car because you can't park. And you walk into these, these gardens, which are enormous, and there are displays. So they'll do stuff around what the kids are watching, you know, on Disney and things, but they'll also do with flowers and with vegetation and stuff. And that's something that I think a family can do together. And then, of course, you come out of the gardens, and there's all kinds of pubs and stuff you can go and have fish and chips and things. It's a wonderful day trip like that's really something you go kind of you have a nice morning and have brunch maybe, and get sustenance. And then you go out on the tube at around 11 o'clock in the morning. And then you stay over lunch and have dinner Exactly. So I think, you know, you go at five. It goes on till about 10 o'clock at night. I think I've never done that. Oh, it's fantastic. It's I've never done that one maybe I'll do that this year. Are you going to go this year? Yeah, yes, I'm over next year, but I'm this year. I'm coming on the 25th like on Christmas Day, but I think that the late display lasts until New Year's, doesn't it? After? After it's so popular. But you need to go and look for tickets. So if anybody's listening and is interested, just go on Kew Gardens website. And I checked it a minute ago, and it's all there. But just talking about you going to London

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last year. We hooked up at Christmas, and I very drinky. It was very drinky, and it was fun. But I also took you to Richmond Park. So after Q, you get to Richmond, Richmond, it's where they shot Ted lasso. It's one of the last towns of the London Borough, if you will. Again, you could get take the Tre overground or the underground. And Richmond Park, which was a hunting ground for Henry the Eighth, has hundreds of different types of deer in that park, and it's huge, wasn't it? The King's game park, yeah, and he could gallop all the way to the tower at the other side of London through vegetation, of course. Now that's a long time ago, hundreds of years ago, but it's a wonderful park for people to walk. It's more than a park. I don't know how many acres it is, but he was the largest in the world of a park, and.

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And it's full of wildlife, so you've got all these deer, like the real ones with the red dots on them, and then the horns and the whole bit. So we're driving, you can drive through the park very slowly, and there's places to park. And so we're driving through because we're going to another place I'll mention in a minute for lunch, and Tommy wants to take a picture.

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So we, so we stopped the car, and I actually took a video, which I'm going to post somewhere, because it's hilarious. And you went up to the deer, which you're allowed to do. They're very, you know, they're pretty good, not obviously, with a dog or anything, but you can go up and photograph them. So you went to take some pictures. And this is the, honestly, they should use this as a commercial for vegans, because you're coming out with this flock of deer all looking at us. You know, maybe 50 deer as you're coming towards me, you say, and can you imagine people eat them?

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You video game too much. I

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don't even know. Oh, it's so funny. It's so funny. He was so offended not You're not eating those. I mean, if you touch them, you go to prison. We're just going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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If people who are listening go back to last year on my Instagram feed, you can see that photo that I took right before I turned around and walked back to Debbie's car.

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Post it. Yeah. So we were, we were on our way to a place called Petersham. And Petersham is a tiny little enclave, very old, right on the river the Thames, of course, is coming through there, but it's really like the countryside, but you're still in the borough of London.

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And Petersham nurseries is, was a manor house owned by Italian Australians, and they found at the back of the house, which is in the park or like by the Thames, all these old nurseries, like Victorian nurseries, all tumbling down. So they rebuilt them into a coffee shop and a fantastic restaurant. Dirt floors, antiques to die for. Buy plants. You can buy an armoire. You can buy a Christmas tree. Yeah, and that's something to go for lunch during the day. Have a great walk along the river and then go and have a real, you know, English kind of puppy type lunch. Or you can go in the coffee shop and just have a piece of cake or something. So that's, that's a lovely outing if you're in London. The other thing that's new, if people haven't been to the UK for a while is Battersea Power Station. So Battersea Power Station, I have to say, they have done an incredible job. So it was the largest power station in the world, and it basically powered London, and they closed it down, and it's one of London's most iconic buildings. It was onto

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whose album was, it was,

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it was, yeah, it's like 40 city blocks. It's a square building with four chimneys either side. So people have been bidding on it for 20 odd years, maybe more. Even Cirque du Soleil tried to get it to what they were going to do with this building. You know, the Chinese wanted it. They wanted it. All kinds of people wanted this as an investment. So it was very strict about what they couldn't, couldn't do. So of course, it's, you know, apartments, condos and things like that. But there's also one of the chimneys is a lookout, so you can go up it and see across London. And then inside it's, I mean, I hate the word mall, but it's like, you know, there's all kinds of great shops, like a market, a mix market. Well, a mall has a, you know, a feeling, because now they're doing new types of malls, but so this is more open, but on the outside of the building there are every nationality of restaurant you can imagine, and that along the Thames. So Battersea Power Station is built on the river, right on the river. So if you stay at Sloan, you can walk over the bridge, Chelsea bridge, and there you can nobody can miss Battersea Power Station. It seemed from space, I think, but on the outside you can walk, and it's all full. It's got a skating rink. It's got all these restaurants all lit up at night, so it's a beautiful walk along the river that they've developed all this stuff, and they have done a really, really good job. So that's something that, if you haven't been to London for, you know, five or six years, again, in that hood, one of my favorite restaurants is a French bistro called Colbert, which is right next to Sloan square tube, not stupidly expensive, and it was a restaurant that that next to it is the theater, one of the theaters, the Royal Court Theater, so all the actors go in there before they go on stage. And I actually sat next to John Cleese, wow, three months ago. Yeah.

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Yeah, so it's full of well known faces. You feel like you're in Paris now. A lot of places in London are open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, all that kind of stuff. And they are too. It's quite hard to get into, but on the right hand side of it is like a French bar, and you can go and have steak, Fritz, you can go and have vegan Fritz, you can go and have and have and you can sit at the bar, and you don't need to book that. Oh, that's nice. Our other favorite place, which I know you love for eating, is the Wolseley. And the Wolseley again, oh my gosh. Of course we love it. Me and my family, we always put that into somewhere over the Christmas holidays, because the Wolseley is on pickets next to the Ritz Carlton. Yes, it's the most beautiful building. Is where all the lights are, if you're going to do the lights and stuff. And it was the old Wolseley. Wolseley was a make of a British car in the 1920s Yes, when people bought cars as a real

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treat, Piccadilly was car showrooms. Can you imagine? So now our showrooms are outside a city because they're too big. But Piccadilly was famous for car showrooms. So the Wolseley, it's not like the car showrooms you see today, which are just sterile and whatever they're selling cars. These were, it was, you know, it was a big thing to buy a car in that very special occasion. And it was very for very wealthy people. It was a privilege to have a car. So this showroom was so ornate and gorgeous. So and they where the lift was. It goes up like two, two floors, because that was the lift where the car used to go up. So they do breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea. And people come in pre theater. They have a very small bar you can drop in. They often have tables, you know that they keep for drop ins, but it's a wonderful after, after shopping place, and it's right, right next to Fortnum and Mason. It's one of my favorite interiors in all of London. And also, I just discovered last year when I was there, that they happen to have a gorgeous little private dining room that's up above overlooks the dining room. If you're having a very special occasion, like a milestone birthday, or you wanted to have an incredibly special family Christmas in London, you can book this little private dining room. And one of my favorite ways to do the Christmas lights, because I don't like crowds. I'm too short, all I can see is everybody's boobs. It's very hard for me to see things. So it's a tour of breasts of Britain when I go to when I go to Bond Street. But listen, it's very the nice way to do it calmly for me, is I like to have an early dinner at the Wolseley and it gets dark very early at Christmas in London. So you can have a very early dinner at like five, yeah, and it's four o'clock, it's already dark, and it's easier to get a reservation that early at the Wolseley at Christmas. And then I go and walk the lights, so along Regent Street, over to Bond Street. And then once you're done with the crowds and the craziness of all of that. There are a few different bars that I like to go to just for an after, you know, traipsing the lights drink. So there's ham yard, which is near Soho, fabulous for a very contemporary, beautiful it's a kitkamp hotel. And then there's, of course, Claridge's, the famous Claridge's bar. You do have to make a reservation at Claridge's, but you do not at the hem yard. Do you for just a drink? Yes, just for a drink, you can go. You can walk right into the ham yard just for a drink, because it's such a huge bar, they've always got space, even at Christmas. In fact, last Christmas, I think I went there every night that I wasn't with you

28:38  
and Jackie bartender. Do you remember I was texting you and saying, there's a very handsome Italian bartender that I've been here every night for the last three nights. And you said, Send me a picture. Get a picture of him without him noticing. Oh, my God. And downstairs, downstairs at Hamilton, is a bowling alley, and I got some really cool ideas for Tuscany down there, what they did with old doors and things like that. And they have a cinema, they'll play movies, and you can have a dinner and a movie within the hotel. So it's kind of Yeah, it's just a calm, it's an oasis of calm after the frantic sort of crowds, huge tourist crowds that go to see the Christmas lights. When you go to the hamyard, it's tucked away. It's very secret, and tucked behind all of the action in Piccadilly. And so you sneak back in there, down a narrow little thing, and there's a little courtyard, and you go into the bar, and it is calm. If you want to see crowds. Probably the most painful crowds ever is Selfridges. Selfridges on any day of the week is a nightmare. At Christmas they actually you have to line up. Selfridges was owned by Galen Weston, Canadian, I think it's just sold, yeah, a few years ago. Well, they also did Mr. Selfridge. It was a TV series, so it was one of it was one of the first department stores for clothes, because in the old days, rich people had the clothes brought to their.

30:00  
House, you know, you try them on and stuff. And then he invented the kind of breakdown of the department store, you know, with the glove department and this department. And of course, it was so successful, it was copied all over the world, Bloomingdale's and sacks and all this kind of stuff. Hope REM fruit and so Selfridges. I have a funny story about that, because when I first moved to London, I was 16 and a half 17, and I got a job in the schmutter business. So it was off Oxford Street, and this is where they they were all these designers, and I'm talking low end designers, you know, with racks, and they always had a thing in the window. Still do, actually, it's their model wants it. So of course, I'm thinking, I'm going to be on the cat walks in Paris. I was actually, I was actually labeling. I go, Oh, I got the job. I got the job anyway. I was labeling clothes. But they had the old mother sat in a chair in there all day, and she had a stick, and she would poke me with this stick and hit me and say, Hey, girl, you missed one. Hey, girl, I loathed this. Wow. Oh, she was doing he mentioned doing that today. Anyway. You know, in those days, you sucked all this stuff up. But one day, her son, who was in his 60s, or something, told me to take his mother to Selfridges. But she was, what is it when you don't like going out agoraphobic. So he came out of the back with a long rope, and, I mean, people are going to hate me for this. And he said, take my mother into Selfridges, but I'm going to tie this rope around her wrist, and you're going to hold the other end, because she really

31:41  
doesn't like, you know, crowds. Well, why would I be going to Selfridges? Anyway? She shouted at me all the walk there. It wasn't very far, two blocks or something. We get in there, and by the time I get there, I'm in such a state. So I got her right in the middle in the crowds, and I undid the rope,

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and I went back. I walked back to the shop, and I said, I've lost your mother. She just disappeared into the crowd, so they had to call the police and go and get her. She was fine, but I couldn't bear her. And then I let I was fired, but so that was myself. Selfridges all have to go again this Christmas, because Selfridges is where I like to buy my socks and knickers. And it's so funny, because it's seems really extravagant to go to London to buy socks and knickers, but they have a men's underwear and socks department at Selfridges that is so easy to navigate and so nice. They have the most beautiful different brands of socks and boxer shorts and things that you can't find anywhere else. And so I always make a point every year of going and buying a new cycle of socks and knickers at Selfridges. But it's a nightmare to go there during Christmas season, because it's a nightmare is on Oxford Street. Oxford Street is the street where all the chains are, yeah, and Londoners completely avoid it. When it's high tourist season, people from outside London come in and to me, it's, you know, it's malls shopping, but it's all day. It's a street that's dropped off except for taxis and busses.

33:12  
But, I mean, yeah, there are so many things to do, but, oh, another one is entertainment. So of course, you can look up and look at what's on at the theater. Yes, when I'm in London with the family, we always so expensive though, we always go and see you know something. But one of the things that people might not know about, which I think is has been absolutely amazing, is the Albert Hall, which was built by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria, is one of the most beautiful buildings, a circular building, just beautiful, just off Hyde Park. Anyway, many years ago, do you remember the movie The artist? Yes, of course. It was a silent film. So what they did was they re, it was the this was the first time they did it. They showed the artist, because the Albert Hall is a music hall. It's for concerts, right? It's a concert hall. Yes, it's a concert hall. But what they did was they played the film, and then they put in front of the film The London Philharmonic, and they played to the movie anyway. It was a phenomenal success. So a few months ago, I saw in the paper, they did Mission Impossible, and they started playing, and then they stopped, and the whole Albert Hall went completely silent. And a man got up in the audience, walked to the stage, came on the stage, and with a lump in his throat, he was so moved, said, I have been waiting for this all my life, and it was Tom Cruise. Oh, my God, that's so bizarre. Mission Impossible, so he orchestrated. So I don't know what they did with the dialog with it, or maybe they just showed all the action scenes, but they played with the orchestra. So this Christmas they're doing.

35:00  
Going Home Alone. So they go all the music. So of course, it's huge for families. Again, it's something to look for. If you're going to go next year, they'll do something each year that's different each year. So this has become very, very popular, showing scenes silently from a movie with the London Philharmonic playing. That's amazing. Isn't that fabulous? So I know this year, it's home alone, and Mission Impossible was a, was a sell out hit. And then, of course, they do the proms, which is all they kind of, you know, English music, the, you know, marching into battle and all that, and people, it's a sing along. And it's fabulous, absolutely. So that's, I think, you know, everybody knows about the theater, and there's many ways to find out what's on in musicals and things. But I think that's something that's it's not in the West. It's not in Shaftesbury Avenue, where all the theater is, which is the equivalent of Broadway. It's kind of past Harrods kind of thing. Taking you back to New York, speaking of iconic shows, the trip that we went on for my mom's 70th The other thing that she really wanted to do, that everybody was kind of, you know, like, Oh, do we really have to do that? Like, I don't want to do that, was the Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall. So all of the family opted out of going to the Rockette show, but my mother said, damn it, I'm going to this show, and somebody's gonna come with me. So Jim, my stepfather, and I went to see the show with my mom, and it was so interesting, because I kind of thought, like, I feel like we've seen this before. It's just a bunch of women kicking their feet high in the air. Like, how interesting can it be? I will tell you, you can mark my words. It was magnificent. It was so beautifully done. It was so incredible and so magical, and so Ultra Christmassy and fabulous that we went back to the hotel and told everybody else, well, you you've missed the performance of a lifetime. I mean, add to that, of course, for me, the interiors of the iconic Radio City Music Hall, one of the most important art deco interiors in all of the world. It certainly did not disappoint. I mean, you walk in, you see these huge murals and these magnificent staircases, and then you go into the theater itself, which is massive, I think it holds like 3000 people or something, probably more, probably 6000 and it has these beautiful arches and everything that you see. And then the stage show is so epic. There's, at one point, I think there's, like, 300 people on stage. It's crazy. And so that, to me, was one of those things that, you know, hundreds and hundreds of trips to New York. I'd kind of thought it's too touristy for me, or I'm a little bit above this, or it's not something that I would be interested in. Couldn't be further from the truth, it was a fabulous evening, really beautiful. And again, it's right in that area that I call the Christmas cluster. If you're staying at the Plaza, and you go right around the corner, you can walk in and walk home. And I think that's the key when you're in very, very busy places is, it's the getting in and the getting out that's difficult. If you can do it all on foot, especially after the theater, when everybody's waiting for the same cab, like, goodness, it's crazy. I think in New York, public transport is not quite as you know, it's a bit dodgy. Whereas in London, you know, I love incredible transport, unbelievable. That's all I do, yeah. And then, of course, in London, it is the Christmas fair, so in Hyde Park. So a few years ago, I filmed in there for Marilyn show, Marilyn Dennis's show, Oh, that's right, I remember that we filmed in there, and it was just before COVID. And then, so I went with Marilyn producer, and then they wanted to film, you know, like New York has the Christmas tree. They have a tree in Trafalgar Square, which is given by the Norwegians to thank the British for their help in the war. So I so John Simpson, the the producer, said, we've really got to go and do that. Debbie said, okay, and we get there, and our faces dropped because it's, it's the tree comes from Norway, and it's enormous, like, like Rockefeller Center

39:05  
this year. I don't know what happens whether Norway was pissed off with Britain, for some reason it was the scrappiest. Like, half of it was, we couldn't even film it. We could not film it. It looked like a joke. And we're like, they hadn't put baubles on it yet. They hadn't lit it, and we're just like what

39:25  
it was. So it's miserable. I feel like this could cause an international diplomatic crisis. Yeah, exactly like that, but, but walking distance from Trafalgar Square is also Somerset House. Somerset House is backing onto the Thames near the near the parliament buildings, and that's where every person born in Britain is registered. And they put an ice rink up. And it is so beautiful. So it's next to King's College, where really pretty kids went, Yeah, so that's something. It's free. You can just go and, you know, watch people. It's just, it's beautiful.

40:00  
Again, all these things. So there are many, I think if you are a few of you, it's worth googling. What can you do in these big cities for nothing? Because they are, and somebody told me this morning here that they're taking their kids next week, and they do it. You know, high tea is a big thing in London for yes, yeah. And you can go from the Ritz, where it's like 80 bucks,

40:25  
you know, it's very expensive, but the Grinch, the movie, does an open air bus with green

40:33  
so that's nice. I mean, you could do that. You might get you might people. I might ask you for autographs, though I'd be more likely to go to the Dorchester darling. Yeah, that's more your style. Or you can eat green food with lots of little children on the bridge tour bus. No, no, no. You'll find me in Mayfair. I'll be at the I'll be at the Mount street restaurant. Thanks, God. So yeah, I hope people have got some, you know, just get them in the Christmas spirit. And if, if, obviously, it's not on your list for this year, but it is. It's a different type of holiday, and I think it's there is so much to do in these two cities for Christmas. Debbie, where will you be for Christmas this year? I will be in Italy. So they're all coming here, and there's already loads of things kind of going on, and lots of people are here and parties and stuff like that. And then I thought, Oh, my God, a month with the kids will kill each other. So I've rented a house in Sicily

41:27  
in January. So I don't know what the weather is going to be like. It's not going to be that warm. It won't be I thought Sicily was fairly far south. So we've rented a house in Notto, which is a Baroque town, absolutely stunning. That's virtually nearly touching North Africa.

41:45  
So I think it'll be like 18 degrees, you know, it's not going to be too hot. That's nice. That's like lovely sort of jacket weather, lovely. Yeah, exactly, because Sicily gets so hot it's

41:57  
in the middle of a plantation, and it's ultra, ultra modern, but, but very old on the outside. And so I think it'll be a nice and I want to do a, I want to do a Sicilian cooking class, you know, because the food there is very different, yeah, it is originally, yes, yeah. And then, you know, the kids will can all go off and do their things. It won't be a beach holiday, of course, and I'm sure a lot of restaurants will be closed, but I think it'd be really nice to explore. And you'd go to places like taramina, where they shop White Lotus, which now you can't even get down the street. That's also a great way of doing Christmases, as you know, is renting something because it's far cheaper than the cost of a hotel. Yes, absolutely. You get a weekly rate instead of a daily rate. It's much cheaper, exactly. So, so we'll have Christmas and New Year here, and then we're driving and the kids, so we drive all the equipment down, and the dog and the kids are flying. But then you see the flights here, so that I've just booked them yesterday. They're 20 euros. They're nothing. Oh, my God, are you flying? Wiz air? Oh, it just won again, worst airline in the world.

43:03  
I'm never going to forgive you.

43:06  
I'll never forgive you for my wiz Air flight. I know told the publicist, I'll go on anything but wiz air. Yeah, you told Chris Brenton, I'll book anything but wiz air. It's the worst airline in Europe, in the world, yes, and then I booked Tommy on wiz air

43:21  
out of it wrong, but it was the only one that was a direct flight. And was it that bad? It wasn't actually that bad. I mean, it probably could have been, but I think I got lucky. My luggage arrived, and everything was fine, and it was not terrible. And I wasn't standing it wasn't standing room on the airplane. I had a seat. All the things that I was worried about didn't happen anyway. So on that happy note, we'll obviously be doing more podcasts before Christmas. Yes, of course. I hope people enjoyed that, because I'm all excited now. I can't wait to go shopping. Yes, me too. This was very good advice on London, and hopefully a little bit from me on New York. And if you are planning a trip of a lifetime, it is a special occasion. So within your budget, treat yourself. If you're enjoying this podcast, please rate us, send in a review and make sure you subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai