As I finally arise after 10 blissful hours of sleep to a balmy 12 degree day in Boston, I am happy to be home. This is for at least two reasons. For those of you who read my previous post you know that I no longer like being away from my family, I missed them from the moment I left. Not to mention that we have our first big snow of the year coming and it will be nice to do a bit of sledding.

The second reason is that the 10 hours of sleep I got last night was approximately equal to the sum of sleep of the three previous nights. When I signed up for the red eye flight, I completely forgot that during the holiday season in London, festive drinking begins at noon and ends when no one will fill your glass any longer.

It really was a fun trip. I got to catch up with almost everyone that I had hoped to see. As is always the case for me in London we spent lots of time in debate about just about anything. It’s always great to be able to drop in to a conversation as if you had just been there yesterday. Had lots of great food capped by my favorite Lobster Roll at Burger and Lobster in Mayfair. The only difficulty was that by the time I got there I was either near or into double digits in terms of glasses filled (and emptied). To be honest, I’m not really sure as I am totally out of practice with competitive drinking.

This was the penultimate stop of the evening which led us to a bar that shall remain nameless in Mayfair. Upon our arrival at Midnight (legal closing time for bars in London) we were greeted by the sight of Fire Marshall’s entering the bar. Did that stop us? Nah! As we descended the stairs the sound and temperature climbed at a rapid rate. When we got to the basement we saw 200 or so people crowded into a barely lit room. It took me a minute to realize that the lack of lighting was a blessing. At the front of the room there were ten or so aged 40+ white men (bankers) dancing on tables. Not necessarily a sight for the feint of heart. This went on fueled by magnums of whatever the bar had left until one guy missed a step……

This was my cue to begin the search for a cab. London isn’t NYC so you could imagine the pickings were slim…. Anyway, I survived and no I don’t dance!

The interesting take away was that the mood in London was nothing short of ebullient. Everyone I met was happy, relaxed, and hopeful. Now I get what you all are thinking, “of course they’re happy, they’re the 1%”. Thats fair but the past 5 years haven’t been fun for most of these guys and usually theres cynicism and a bit of resignation in their conversation. I saw none of that. Not to mention that the shops, restaurants, and of course the bars were filled with lots of people carrying lots of bags of stuff. BTW, if you haven’t been to London for the holidays, you must go even if its only for a few days. Similar to NYC but very different.

I keep hearing about GDP being up, unemployment being down, inflation staying low. I am always skeptical of any of these government issued statistics. now seeing people eating, drinking, and shopping in copious quantities……….that gives me hope.