Jellied eels. Toad in the hole. Bangers and mash. The Full English. An Eton mess. Trifle. Crumble. Yorkshire pudding. Scotch eggs. A menu of oddly named and sometimes oddly tasting traditional British dishes awaits adventurous diners visiting London for the Olympic Games this summer.

To an American like me, the names of English foods take some getting used to. Take the term “pudding”. In the States, a pudding is specifically a runny, milk-based desert. In England it refers to anything sweet served after the main course– unless it is from Yorkshire, and then it is savory, resembles a popover, and is served with roast beef. The closest thing the English have to American pudding is custard — a luminous yellow sweet sauce which they insist on drowning their deserts in. They consider it a comfort food but I find it revolting, even when my English husband tries to pass it off under the exotic French title of “crème anglais”.

I discovered my favorite English desert after I had been touring the country on a bus for four days. My taste buds had been numbed by a steady diet of egg salad sandwiches and salt and vinegar crisps (or chips, as we Americans call them) so the first time I tried an Eton mess, I swooned. The simple combination of crumbled meringue, vanilla ice cream, strawberries and whipped cream was heavenly. The name of the desert refers to Eton college, a posh school in Queen Elizabeth’s hometown. I imagine mess comes from the appearance of the dish. Recently I made one with my three-year-old daughter and she now shares my passion and nightly begs me to “make the mess again”. I admit, my taste buds might not be the most sophisticated.

Moving away from puddings, the dishes don’t get any less confusing.

I’m happy to report that no amphibians die in the making of toad in the hole — a bizarre combination of sausages entombed in Yorkshire pudding batter. This isn’t as bad as it sounds and toad in the hole recipes using quality sausages and fancy seasonings by celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay can be quite tasty. Done cheaply, as a ready meal from grocery store, it’s as grim as you’d expect.

The “full English” is a mountain of greasy breakfast foods that I imagine must be aimed at the hardworking construction worker with an appetite — or hangover — the size of a skyscraper. The ideal full English includes varying amounts of eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, chips (by which I mean french fries) and toast. There’s also the option of black pudding — a terrifying slice of blood sausage.

I ordered a full English at a London café which, for reasons I would soon appreciate, goes by the name of “Enough to Feed and Elephant”. The waitress warned me that it was a lot of food and I might want to opt for something lighter, like a bowl of porridge. I persevered, and the chef brought out a plate of food that could have easily fed the four American women at the table next to me whose eyes widened at its arrival. “You going to eat that all by yourself?” asked one of the women, just as the chef scurried back to serve me the mushrooms, the toast, and a sausage that he had forgotten to add to the plate.

I always imagined that jellied eels might be a lot nicer than they sound and perhaps just needed rebranding. So for £5, I purchased a large Styrofoam cup filled with this traditional London delicacy from “Tubby Issacs”, a market stall in the Aldgate area of the city that operates under the admirably optimistic claim of being “world famous”. To make this dish, eels are chopped, spiced, boiled and then cooled, thus rendering them in a thick, gelatinous coating. They can be eaten on their own or with a chilli vinegar. I also recommend eating them with a bucket — just in case nausea strikes. I did try to enjoy them but the smell was off-putting and my colleagues kept making retching sounds as I arranged them for a photograph. I had the tiniest of bites and found them incredibly salty with a strong fishy flavor. They were mushy, slimy and wretched.

I’m mildly ashamed to report that, though I have sampled England’s eels and toads, I have not yet tasted its Scotch eggs. Although this popular snack has impeccable credentials — upscale London department store Fortnum and Mason claims to have invented it — there’s no getting away from the fact it is a hard-boiled egg, wrapped in sausage meat, covered in breadcrumbs and then deep fried. My husband implores me to try them, but I have managed to fob him off for the past seven years, convinced that only an Englishman born and bred could possibly enjoy eating something that resembles an eyeball rattling loose in its socket.

I did come close. After I photographed the scotch eggs for my project looking at English foods, I wrapped them up, planning to try them ceremoniously with a very large beer chaser when I returned from work. To my delight, before I returned home, my husband had found them so irresistible that they had disappeared.

Another omission is the unfortunately-named spotted dick. I’m told it’s a sponge-based desert, inevitably served with custard. Despite once being a staple of English dining, it has strangely vanished from most modern menus. For me, and perhaps for other visitors nervously exploring London’s culinary delights this summer, this is for the best.

On the outside, Angels The Costumiers is a drab grey warehouse bordered on one side by an industrial estate and on another by an artery of railway lines ferrying weary commuters to the endless suburbs of northwest London. Inside, it’s pure Hollywood.

As the world’s largest supplier of outfits to cinema, stage and television, Angels is home to more than eight miles of clothing rails — a vast and dizzying maze in which it’s simultaneously possible to lose yourself and stumble upon a piece of movie history.

SLIDESHOW: COSTUMES OF THE STARS

“This here is our £60,000-pound rail,” says Jeremy Angel, a creative manager at the costumier, gesturing to a rack on which hangs hundreds of drab-looking ecclesiastical garments. “It’s where we found the Obi-Wan Kenobi robe.”

Photo courtesy of Bonhams

The tale of how staff rediscovered the gown worn by actor Alec Guinness in Star Wars is a favorite at Angels, neatly summing up both the size of the collection and the gems potentially lost within. Kenobi’s cape was regularly rented out as an ordinary monk’s robe for movies and costume parties until it was recognized by a member of staff then auctioned off for £59,000.

Angel, one of the sixth generation of his family involved in the business, escorted me around the warehouse as it began to offer rare public tours. Among the tour highlights will be some of the outfits that have garnered Angels no fewer than 33 Academy Awards for films such as “Cleopatra” (1963), “Star Wars” (1977), “Titanic” (1997) and “Alice in Wonderland” (2011).

Even without the visitors, Angels is a hive of activity. In the tailoring, making and alterations departments, staff with tape measures draped around their necks create new costumes or adapt old ones. In among the racks, others treasure hunt for specific items.

On our travels we encounter a costume researcher searching for a rare Indian ceremonial headdress. With tens of thousands of hats to sift through, it seems an impossible task, but within minutes she holds aloft a turban which will aptly fit the bill.

Another researcher is less fortunate on her quest for a choirboy’s cassock. At one point she picks out one which looks perfect — until she notices it has three arms.

For every weird item of clothing, there is something equally mundane. For years, Angels has collected ordinary outfits that define passing trends. Entire sections of the warehouse are given over to clothing from every decade stretching back over the past century. “Most of my childhood wardrobe is in those racks,” confided Angel.

Since it was established in 1840, Angels has absorbed several other clothing archives, including the BBC’s costume collection, swelling to such a point that it now boasts, among other things, to be able to supply the uniform of any rank from any military organization in the world.

For most visitors, however, the likely attractions will be the outfits worn by the stars. Some of these are on display — like recent costumes from War Horse and The Iron Lady — and others lurk on the rails. At one point, as we are passing, an assistant unintentionally pulls out an outfit worn by Daniel Day Lewis in “Mutiny on the Bounty”.

There are other, more surprising touches of show business and glamor. In the tailoring department a battered ledger contains the measurements of scores of celebrities. Opening at a random page, we find the vital statistics of the late Laurence Olivier right near an entry for Hugh Grant.

Other regular customers, according to Jeremy Angel, include Elton John, Sting, Daniel Craig, Paul and — reflecting the costumier’s strong links with the world of contemporary fashion — Stella McCartney.

Angels tries to keep better track of its celebrity outfits these days, particularly those which might see repeat usage in movie sequels or long-running television series or, indeed, raise a few thousand pounds at auction — a useful source of revenue in tough financial times.

Jeremy Angel is elusive when asked if the economic downturn is affecting his business. Movie and television budgets are falling, he says, but some of the shortfall has been covered by diversifying into opera, ballet and theater. Over six generations “we’ve seen ups and downs,” he adds.

Back in the warehouse, we are standing on a balcony when I spot one of the dressmakers working down among the clothing racks and set off to try and find her. Within minutes I am lost and alone. I can hear the air conditioning units droning overhead, but all other sound is muffled by the soft walls of clothing.

So vast is the collection (one million outfits and counting) that nearly 10 minutes pass before I finally locate Anna Spencer who is putting together costumes for a new television show.

Will these outfits be worn by stars and destined for the £60,000 rail? Spencer allows me to photograph her but won’t let me in on any details, so I leave her to her work and try to find my way out again.

It takes me some time…

To book one of the inaugural tours at Angels, contact tours@angels.uk.com or call Mark on +44 (0) 20 8202 2244.

When Queen Elizabeth II makes a public appearance there is usually a long list of protocol rules for those handling the visit, but this clearly doesn’t include what to do when hailstones start showering down.

The Queen was caught in a sudden hail storm on Wednesday while meeting the public in Richmond Park, southwest of London. Dark clouds overhead unleashed a torrent of ice on the 86-year-old monarch and a bitter wind tried to snatch away her umbrella.

The burst of wintry weather caught many people off guard. There were squeals from school children gathered for the event.

And around the Queen, officials hovered uneasily, unsure whether to breach rules on touching her as they ushered her to and from shelters.

But the Queen herself was unfazed. Despite being dressed for less inclement weather in an elegant powder blue dress and a white lavender and pale blue tweed coat, she kept her poise and gamely triumphed over the wind in the battle for control of her transparent umbrella.

Then, despite wearing heels, she skipped gingerly across a boggy field that had most people slipping and sliding to remain upright.

The Queen took cover in a large tent as the wind howled and the hailstones thrummed down on the canvas. The hail soon subsided and was followed by rain, which she clearly doesn’t consider something that should keep her from her business.

And so she continued her official duties, which included meeting sports people, talking with members of a gun-dog club, watching a maypole dance and a ballet troupe. Accompanied by broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough she also encountered otters, a horse and a sheep-shearing demonstration.

The event in Richmond Park, being attended by the Queen as part of her jubilee celebrations to mark 60 years on the throne, was named largely after the animals on display, but could just as easily have been named after the squally weather: Wild London.

You could be forgiven for thinking photos of Prince Harry’s recent tour of the Caribbean showed the young royal living up to his reputation as a high class carouser. There he was slurping enormous cocktails, dancing the night away and kissing a young woman on the cheek.

Splashed across newspapers and website with headlines like “Prince Harry gets the party started” or “Harry dances in the street,” these images appear to show a boozy extrovert who will take any excuse to shake his stuff in public.

I spent more than a week tailing the third-in-line to the British throne on a whistle stop tour of Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Brazil. Though I photographed him in many of these situations, it was pretty clear Harry isn’t quite the party animal he’s often made out to be.

On tour, at least, Harry is heavily stage-managed. He and his press secretaries know the photographers want to see the “fun” prince dancing and drinking. But whether he wants to be photographed drinking and dancing is another matter.

In fact I only saw Harry — who was traveling as an ambassador for Queen Elizabeth as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations and a representative of the UK government — dance three times and drink twice. And he didn’t seem to be having that much fun.

On his first night in Belize he danced with two local women at a street party. He looked deeply uncomfortable as he accepted an invitation from the first, a much older woman, with whom he danced a few steps before happily being upstaged by a dancer in a deer costume.

When he danced with the second woman, who was very attractive and closer to his age, he kept his back to the press, sheltered from view by an enormous security guard. Both dances together totaled about 60 seconds.

At this same street party, I photographed him with a Belizean rum, from which he took a single sip before making a face indicating its strength.

He then tried to make polite excuses to leave, but a pushy bartender persuaded him to try his specialty hibiscus rum punch. Harry clearly wasn’t comfortable, asking, “are they ready yet?” and glancing back at his press secretary.

After some feverish mixing, the drink was served. Harry again took just one sip, complimented the bartender, set the drink on the bar, and moved on.

Although you wouldn’t know it from some of the rather colorful press coverage using the drinking photographs of Harry, this was hardly a wild bender. At least one paper got rather carried away with its reporting and had to issue an apology.

After Belize, the “party” prince must have been pooped. We traveled though the Bahamas without a dance or drink incident and it wasn’t until our first day in Jamaica that Harry was propositioned again during a visit to a youth center.

Possibly resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to resist dancing to Jamaica’s reggae beats, Harry was wearing a pair of Blue suede shoes when he was invited by an indisputably attractive young woman to throw a few shapes to Bob Marley’s “One Love.”

But again the situation was clearly uncomfortable for the prince. As she approached, he blushed awkwardly and a panicked look swept across his face. To his credit, he quickly overcame his reticence and showed some smooth moves.

You would have thought Harry’s next stop, the Brazilian Mardi Gras hotspot of Rio de Janeiro, would have been the perfect place to let his hair down. But even though I saw him with a pair of samba dancers, they kept their distance and the prince didn’t join in.

And that was it. No more drinking (sipping) and no more dancing. So while the trip was widely seen as a success and Harry praised for his easy-going approach, the “party” was over before it ever really began.

British sports fans are a serious bunch. When it comes to football (they never call it soccer), many would rather lose their home than miss their team score a winning goal. Club allegiance is often demonstrated with tribal passion – influencing tattoos, clothing and even choice of marital partners.

When American football makes a rare appearance in London, it’s somewhat of a surprise to see the seriousness of the sport replaced with a more frivolous obsession: cheerleaders.

That’s not to say British fans have no interest in the sport. When the Chicago Bears took on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a showcase game at Wembley Stadium in October, I spoke to plenty of Brits among the American expats paying homage to their national sport. Many professed as much fanaticism as the American supporters who had traveled from the States specifically to see their team.

But as a photographer who had covered both kinds of football matches on either side of the Atlantic and grown to love both sports, it’s hard to ignore a few major differences in the fan experience.

Firstly, there’s the food. Growing up in the States, some of my earliest football memories are of the chow served up at games. When I was about 10 years old, my dad would take us to the old Met Stadium to see the Minnesota Vikings Play. We would wade through a sea of purple and gold jerseys to our seats, wipe off the snow and start hailing food vendors. They sold us hot dogs, soda pop, peanuts, hot chocolate, popcorn and if I was lucky, a jumbo box of Milk Duds.

There weren’t many attempts to evoke this at Wembley where fans were encouraged to tuck into a resolutely un-American menu of “British fish and chips.” Hamburgers were available, but advertised on a Union Jack billboard as “British beefburger and chips.”

And then there’s the cheerleaders. When I worked in the States, I barely gave the cheerleaders a second glance. Even though my male colleagues may have ogled them, cheerleader photos would rarely make it into the sports pages. But for British photographers raised in the serious world of Premier League soccer, cheerleaders are an exotic sight.

One colleague working for a national newspaper told me that he had been sent to the Wembley game specifically to shoot the cheerleaders. He wasn’t expected to shoot any sporting action. Knowing the British papers would feature the scantily clad gals in the next day’s papers quite prominently, I too turned my lens toward them, wondering what my colleagues back in the U.S. would think of my photos.

There was, however, plenty of action on the field (not including the surprise appearance of a plucky squirrel and a topless male pitch invader). Fans and photographers alike were rewarded with plenty of plays, touchdowns and goals as the Bears secured a 24-18 victory.

In terms of coverage from the British media, both teams were roundly beaten by the cheerleaders.

They broke down fences at the rear of the Dale Farm site in Essex while bailiffs began to smash low-rise brick walls with sledgehammers at its entrance, with diggers at the ready.

The eviction of about 400 travellers near Basildon marks the climax of one of Britain’s most contentious and bitter planning rows in recent years.

Some residents and their supporters told the media on Wednesday they would resist eviction from the six-acre site “until the end.”

A few protesters wearing balaclavas and hoods threw missiles, including rocks and liquids, at the police from behind flimsy wooden barricades and rubber rings while flames and thick smoke went up from a burning caravan.

Essex Police said taser guns had been used against two protesters and one person had been arrested so far.

Television footage showed one person being carried on a stretcher across a field by paramedics.

The site residents had won a temporary reprieve last month when the High Court issued an injunction stopping officials from clearing the land, but their battle came to an end when they lost a final legal hearing last week.

Travellers say the clearance is a breach of their human rights, targeting a vulnerable group whose choice of lifestyle does not fit in with the mainstream.

The local council argues it is a planning dispute, with the travellers breaking the law by illegally building on the green belt, the band of countryside around London intended to stop urban sprawl.

Among those who had supported the travellers had been actress Vanessa Redgrave and a United Nations’ special rapporteur.

“The memory of Dale Farm will weigh heavily on Britain for generations — we are being dragged out of the only homes we have in this world,” resident Kathleen McCarthy said in a statement from the Dale Farm Solidarity group.

Basildon council leader Tony Ball, told Sky News the council had tried to find the travellers alternative sites, but talks had been exhausted.

“I would much rather not be doing this,” he said.

“But I am clear that by enforcing the law we are doing the right thing, and the majority of people in this country support what we are doing, and expect a public body to uphold the law.”

Many locals had complained of litter and noise from the site.

(Reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Steve Addison)

Looking back at images from more than a decade ago, you could be forgiven for thinking that the job of covering catwalk season was once far less demanding, but just as fashions change, so do the demands on photographers.

When I made my Fashion Week debut at a DKNY show in New York in the spring of 1999, all I had to worry about was getting a well-exposed, in-focus photo of every outfit on the catwalk. Since we were still shooting in film, this came with its own stresses. Every time I finished a roll, there was a desperate scramble to rewind and change before the next model paraded by.

To ensure I didn’t miss anything, I adopted my own Fashion Week fashion: A particular leather jacket that had two pockets at chest level; the left side for unexposed films and the right side for exposed.

Because I then had to dash back and forth to the darkroom to develop the films between shows, there was no time to focus on the hullabaloo surrounding the shows. The circus sideshow of celebrities, influential fashion figures and trend watchers was largely ignored by the cameras.

Since the advent of digital, the stresses of juggling rolls of film have long gone (as has my leather jacket) but that hasn’t made the job any easier. While shooting the creations on the catwalk is still important, the appetite for different kinds of pictures has grown. Now in addition to shooting straight-up-and-down images of outfits during the show, Reuters photographers are also on the look-out for interesting details or wide angles.

Liberated by our digital cameras and laptops, we are able to capture the flavor of Fashion Week’s particular brand of flamboyant theater: the frenzied scenes backstage as models get dressed, the game of spot-the-celebrity in the front row and the street style of freakishly-coiffed fashion bloggers. I even get to write blogs myself.

Although we have more freedom these days, fashion week is still bound by routines. As the onset of digital and the spread of the internet has fueled the appetite for fashion images, the competition among photographers has also increased. To survive the scrum of photographers that crowd the end of the catwalk, preparation is everything.

At London Fashion Week, I usually arrive at a show one or two hours before it starts. Once I get through the gauntlet of security guards and public relations women armed with clipboards and wristbands, I secure a spot on an elevated platform built for photographers. This entails marking off a square foot with tape printed with the Reuters logo which I then slash into strips with a knife to make it too fiddly for a rival photographer to remove (it happens!).

Next, if I’ve been given access, I go backstage to photograph the models getting ready. This often produces some of the most striking images of Fashion Week – young girls lost in a sea of hands armed with lipstick, eyeliner, crimpers, hairspray and curling tongs.

Then it’s back to the catwalk to watch the models do a run-through with show lighting. This is a last chance to check my camera’s white balance settings and make sure no one is trying to steal my spot.

When the doors open to guests, I prime my flash, change my camera settings and prepare myself to compete with the paparazzi and showbiz photographers as the celebrities make their way to their seats. This is a tricky balancing act. If you spend too long chasing the fashionably late famous faces, you won’t make it back to the spot you’ve so carefully marked out. At the Matthew Williamson show this year, actress Sienna Miller arrived only seconds before the models’ high heels hit the catwalk.

Once I am settled into my place, the lights dim, I once again change my camera settings and wait for the music to start. When the show is over I scramble out of my position and find a place to file my pictures. Usually this is on the floor near the catwalk of the next show.

Fashions change, technology changes and so do the demands on photographers, but one thing remains constant: there’s no time for glamor in photojournalism.

In my haste to capture Nadal’s injury I had left my original position with just a 300mm lens and Canon Mark 4 body, knowing I had to be agile as I joined a crush of photographers.

As I shot a few frames, I noticed out of the corner of my non-shooting eye his opponent Juan Martin Del Potro complaining that Nadal is wasting time. Engrossed in this unfolding tennis story, I try to ignore the crowd who are restless and trying to get a Mexican Wave going.

Then something clicks in my brain. A Mexican wave isn’t normally a big deal — but it is when British royal Prince William and his new wife Kate are in the audience.

Sure enough, as I swivel my camera to the royal box, the wave is sweeping towards them. I reach for the lenses that aren’t there because I left them at my original position and mutter a very un-regal curse. Thankfully, I still manage to capture William and the Duchess of Cambridge joining the fun, in their own awkward and out-of-sync style.

Photographing a Grand Slam isn’t just about shooting tennis. You must also tell the story of the match: look for celebrities (wait a minute, is that Jay-Z?); capture reactions from friends and family; and even chart the weather when rain (inevitably) comes or the sun sears.

But if you happen to be at Wimbledon — and probably no where else in the sporting world — you might also see a prince and princess do a Mexican Wave.

I was lucky enough to be assigned a position inside the abbey, but though I got to witness the spectacle through a camera lens, my experience was less about pomp and pageantry and more about perils and pratfalls.

With the congregation dolled up to the nines, even the photographers were expected to smarten up. Abbey staff told us to wear “a suit and tie or female equivalent”. Dressed accordingly in my smartest jacket and skirt, I felt the part – right up until I saw the ladders.

To get to my position, a rickety, three-story high balcony perched above the abbey’s main doorway, I would have to scale a series of steep, metal-rung ladders. I would have to scale them carrying a heavy camera bag behind me — wearing a skirt.

It was hard work, but myself and the six other photographers assigned to the spot worked like a team of Himalayan sherpas to ferry all our gear up the ladders. After 15 stressful minutes of hauling and holding on for dear life, I was safely at the top.

Not everyone made it first time. One photographer, a fit man in his early 30s, lost his footing and crashed to the foot of one of the ladders. I didn’t see it, but I heard his shout of “arrrggggh!” and the crash as a platform broke his fall. Thankfully, only his pride was hurt.

Meanwhile, as the watching world admired beautiful gowns, hats and fascinators of the women below, I found myself standing in what appeared to be one of the dustiest places in London. Every inch of the wobbly platform was caked in dust and our smart wedding suits quickly picked up most of it. If you heard any stifled sneezes during the ceremony, it was probably us.

The service was soon under way, and I went into work mode, blanking out the dust and vertiginous surroundings, as first William then Kate made their entrance.

Then it was over. Newly married, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge walked up the aisle hand-in-hand and out to face the waiting crowds and a new life as Britain’s future king and queen.

And I had to face the ladder again.

The activists draped a banner on the roof of the brick-built mansion calling for Gaddafi to get “Out of Libya” and “Out of London.”

Police said they had made no arrests and that they were treating the occupation as a “civil matter.”

Saif al-Islam bought the home in the exclusive Hampstead Garden Suburb area of north London in 2009, media reports said.

The four-level house is advertised for sale on a local real estate website for 12.5 million pounds. It has nine bedrooms, five reception rooms, a swimming pool, jacuzzi and cinema.

The squatters, calling themselves Topple the Tyrants, were sharing the occupation with demonstrators from the anti-Gaddafi British-Libyan Solidarity Campaign (BLSC), who climbed on the roof and waved flags.

“We want to show the Libyan regime they are finished and to make sure that Gaddafi has no place to come in Britain,” Azeldin el Sharif told Reuters.

One of the squatters, who gave his name as Dariush, said: “We are occupying this house in solidarity with people fighting in Libya and we intend to hold it until it can be given back to the Libyan people.”

He said they had found the building unoccupied but still furnished pending its sale.

Saif al-Islam is a former student of the London School for Economics, whose director Howard Davies stood down last week for accepting funding from a Saif-run charity.

Britain has frozen assets held and controlled by Gaddafi and his children. The Gaddafi family is reported to have billions of dollars of investments in London.

The London offices of the Libyan Investment Authority, which handles the country’s multi-billion-dollar oil revenues, were also deserted on Wednesday.

(Writing and additional reporting by Tim Castle)