Tuesday 10 November 2009

Celebrity Sighting Number 2

I've had my second London celebrity sighting.
Not as big as seeing Colin Firth waiting around to pick up take-away at my local sushi place, for me, anyway, but pretty big in my 23-year-old son's eyes.
We caught a long glimpse of JLS, the cool British boy band that came out of X Factor, Britain's version of American Idol, on Sunday. They've had two UK chart-topping singles recently, "Beat Again," and "Everybody in Love."
So pretty cool.
And they were having lunch, like us, at the Wagamama noodle chain at Westfield Shopping Center.
Westfield is a story in itself, Europe's biggest mall, here in West London, just celebrating its one year anniversary, having opened its expensive doors right about the time Lehman collapsed last year. I'll tell you about that another time.
Back to Wagamama.
Two young British girls sitting near us tipped us off that someone important was amongst us. One of them suddenly stood up and snapped a photo with her cellphone of a far corner of the restaurant.
Then all of a sudden, like the dominos at the Berlin Wall celebrations yesterday, other people stood up and snapped photos too.
"JLS," the girl answered excitedly when we asked her who it was.
Later, the band left just as we left, even though we didn't plan it. So my son actually ran into one of the four of them near the door.
You do have more celebrity sightings here. I'm not sure why.
Washington doesn't have that many celebrities, of course, although some do breeze through town now and again.
It's mostly a government town.
Karen Hughes, one of President Bush's closest advisers, rented a house near me for awhile actually, and that felt celebrity-like. Before 9/11, I saw her sitting outside with her husband and teenage son having a beer after work a couple times. She moved after 9/11, I heard.
That's the kind of celebrities you got in Washington.
Here, Colin Firth lives in my neighborhood. Although I'm sure he's got "a pile", as they say here, or even two or three, in other places.
Anyway, he looked completely at ease when I saw him a couple weeks ago. No body guard or anything. Just on foot with an Italian friend.
These guys looked pretty normal too, just hanging out at the mall on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We saw two of them going up the escalator together a bit later.
Are there less paparazzi here?
Less crazies?
More celebrities living here? What is it?

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