London – my favourite city

16-25 August 31, 2014

I love London! But their fetish for stairs is a pain in the legs and their signs that only get you halfway to somewhere are a pain somewhere else! And perhaps I should be a bit miffed that, while at home everyone says I don’t look as old as I am, in London, when I asked for a seniors concession, Not. One. Person. wanted proof that I qualified. Since money was involved, I can only assume that friends and acquaintances at home are being kind rather than truthful 😉

There was music, a couple of plays, art galleries …. and more. My first three days in London were spent at Ian Baker House, another UCL residence. I’m a great fan of university accommodation!

Courtyard view from my room at Ian Baker House

Then after my Norfolk stint, it was six nights at the home of a friend. Adrian was there to start with but he then trusted me with his home while he went off on holidays of his own. This latter accommodation was south of the river, entirely new territory for me. But so convenient with the tube nearby.

My second London 'home'

The place I stayed in London for my first three visits, formerly a Quaker establishment in Byng Place and not now available, has been done up, as have the grungy roads and paths in the vicinity so it is now a much better looking streetscape than it was 15 years ago.

The former Quaker place

Top of my “want to see” list was the Battersea Power Station. The Gatwick Express kindly obliged, slowing almost to a standstill at this point on the approach to Victoria station as I arrived in London from Reykjavik.

Battersea Power Station

Most important though, as always, was my “want to meet” list, i.e. the people. In this case, Adrian as mentioned, and two ringers, Billy whom I hadn’t seen for more years than I cared to remember (Billy had done the maths – it wasn’t pretty!!) – a most enjoyable catch-up over a pub lunch, and Elizabeth, AKA e-aunt, whom I met up with at a ringing practice then afterwards we talked for ages, again in a pub. I was very kindly given a ring at this practice at Shoreditch – the band so good that even at my best I could never have hoped to ever come close to their skills. I was sorry to miss JPA but our times didn’t coincide this time.

THANK YOU ALL for your time and company (and homes) … I really, really enjoyed and appreciated it!

Never say never and all that, but realistically, as I flew out to Morocco on 26 August, it was a case of Farewell to Old England forever …. although bound for Melbourne rather than Botany Bay, and unlike of old, via Morocco, Barcelona, Vienna and Turkey.

What on earth??!! ….. the things you see

16 - 25 August, 2014

People were sitting pedalling this contraption while sipping coffee or … probably not something stronger, although that’s what they might have been drinking when they decided on this hair-brained adventure. Someone at the front was steering – and they were mixing it with London traffic! Cray-zeee!!!

Pedalo

Taking a breather!

Then there’s the more conventional pedal power …

Just "some" of the bikes parked at Waterloo Station

And what would a visit to London be without an icon or three?!

The Eye, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey -
from the top deck of a bus

A London miscellany

16-25 August, 2014

I’m pretty sure one experience I had in London is going to take some beating for being a total delight. Currently there are 50 books turned into park benches dotted about London. I spotted one in Gordon Square.

Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" book bench
- Gordon Square

I was about to move on when four young ladies came into the square. They were so alive with fun and happiness. It was written all over them and unbelievably infectious. It turned out to be a “hen’s ‘do’ ” for one who is getting married in September. Instead of the usual tacky pub crawl, they were having a day out trying to find as many of these book benches as they could. One gave me a sheet so I could go spotting in the immediate vicinity. It was sad that they were almost apologetic about it: they said they did like pub crawls too, but seemed 100% unconvinced, that they had to say that so they wouldn’t be thought to be whatever today’s equivalent of “square” is. I just thought it inspiring that they were having so much fun, they’d remember it, and they wouldn’t be ashamed to remember it, wishing they hadn’t done it. Wonderful young women.

Paddington Bear book bench

I did a “fan” thing – went and looked at the building that was home and office to Poirot in one of the earlier series.

Poirot lived here!

Nearby I was lucky enough to find what must be the perfect example of one of my favourite treats, usually hard to find – Eccles cakes!

It was hard not to see London’s latest supposedly iconic building, the Shard.

The Shard

I wonder if Londoners will come to rue the day they started allowing skyscrapers to be built. To me, the Shard has none of the “wow” impact factor of the Gherkin which I vividly remember seeing first during the latter stages of its construction.

The “walkie-talkie” has more impact than the Shard, even if some of that impact is unwanted – the curved surface concentrating and reflecting the sun so that it was burning or melting things and one wall has been covered in some sort of fabric to avoid that not-so-little architectural stuff-up!

Walkie-Talkie building -
with anti-sun-glare curtain

I went off my beaten track again, this time north to Hoxton and the Geffrye Museum. This has been housed for 100 years in almshouses that were built 300 years ago. It’s main display is of what we now call the living- or lounge-rooms of the “urban middle classes”, from about 1600 to the 1960s. All fascinating but you wouldn’t want to live in most of them – too dark, too cold, too ‘busy’ with too much decoration.

Geffrye Museum - former almshouses

I followed this up with a trip to Kew Gardens.

Kew Gardens - mind the gap

This time I got on the wrong branch train. It was jam-packed. I had no idea what it was about, maybe football but no football gear, but it sure was a noisy party. Many squashed stations later, just about everyone got out. “What’s up?” I asked one of the few remaining passengers. “Notting Hill Carnival”. Goodness knows where the people on the train were going to fit in the already jam-packed street I saw as the train clickety-clacked over a street bridge.

Another train – the Gardens tourist train. It’s a huge place and very nice but apart from scale it wasn’t a whole lot better than Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens. But just as I was about to give up looking for the bonsai (a very small display) and go home ….

…. I found a really WOW! section of the gardens – the student plots, and plots planted with “like” plants, i.e. from related plant families. These were great! Like the allotments I saw earlier in the Fens area but ever so much more up-market. (No offence Sue!!!)

Allotments ... Kew style!

I did the tree-top walk – and felt really ill at the height. But I only saw one person turning back. She had more sense than the rest of us! The whole visit was accompanied by the sound, and sight if you looked up, of planes coming in to land at Heathrow. That was OK. I love the sight and sound of planes 🙂

Prepare for landing

One wrong turn leads to another

16 - 25 August, 2014

The first day I headed to the Chelsea Physic Garden started with getting on the wrong train. (The second day I headed to there it wasn’t open but we won’t go there – I didn’t read the opening times properly, and to top that off, the nearby Army Museum was closed until 2016 for renovations.)

Chelsea Physic Garden, through the railings

National Army Museum

The wrong train led me to the most touristy thing I did in London, going to O2 (formerly the Millenium Dome) and from there a ride on the corporately named Emirates cable car.

View of O2 from the cable car

Both reminded me of Melbourne: the O2 area being as soulless as Melbourne’s Docklands area, and the cable car being sited in a less than exciting viewing area, as is Melbourne’s troubled Star Observation Wheel. The cable car ride lasted all of five minutes but it wasn’t expensive, you could even use your Oyster card. Bonus! (I did feed my Oyster Card quite a bit while in London!!)

Fly Emirates cable car

After the cable car and not spotting where the tube entrance was (still hoping to get to that garden!), I found myself across the river from the Tower of London, one place I’ve never really wanted to visit but I did get an excellent view of its walls, and the growing field of ANZAC poppies, as I joined the throngs and headed to the walk across Tower Bridge.

Tower of London, from the approach to Tower Bridge

No sooner had I crossed than the warning sounded: all traffic off the bridge, it was to be raised to let a (motoring) yacht pass. I don’t know how often it happens but it was a sight to see.

Tower Bridge - raised

The next twist of fate led me to the Old Operating Room of Old St Thomas’s Hospital. To get there I had to climb a tower for it is housed in the former ringing chamber and roof space of what remains of the church of the old hospital.

Up the tower at Old St Thomas's

This would have to be the smallest and quaintest museum I’ve ever been to, crammed as it is with old operating instruments, dried herbs, a snake skin and ancient medical paraphernalia galore.

Ladies! ... a cervical dilator 😝
... amongst other things

I dare say it’s cleaned regularly but it’s filled with dust traps and with the old wooden beams – you wouldn’t want to drop a match! The operating room itself was quite small and those observing surgeries were jammed in like sardines (the space between the railings meant being thin was compulsory!).

Old operating theatre

There was time for a quick snack (couldn’t resist an amaretti biscuit!) at Borough Market before Evensong at Southwark.

I did manage to get home OK. Just as well! - a delicious pub dinner and a lovely chat with my host Adrian was still on the ‘to do’ list!

London … city of culture – the galleries

16 - 25 August, 2014

Art galleries got a look in. First was the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre, to see the gallery as much as anything. Which was just as well. “The Human Factor surveys how artists over the past 25 years have reinvented figurative sculpture.” What a load of rubbish it was. One exception to my overall verdict was the impressive Ecce Homo, the first sculpture to stand on the empty fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square.

Hayward Gallery

Imagine my surprise at seeing a cobalt blue rooster on the fourth plinth during this visit!

Blue rooster, Trafalgar Square

The nearby skaters’ haunt is apparently under threat. I hope it’s not lost to skaters. It’s hard to see what else could be done with the space.

Skaters' haunt

Next was the National Portrait Gallery for a Virginia Woolf exhibition. This included some very interesting material but, oh dear, too much crammed into too small a space. 

Elsewhere in the gallery was the current crop of BP Portrait Prize finalists. This is the second time I’ve seen a Portrait Prize show and again I was most impressed, far better than Australia’s Archibalds which seem always to consist of people in a smallish clique all painting each other. In the BP prize there was a small number of artists who had painted members of their family, but by and large the subjects had little or no connection to each other. In fact, the winner was a portrait of a street person. 

I also came across a portrait of my daughter-in-law’s namesake, Emmeline Pankhurst, in a display put together to commemorate the suffragette movement.

Emmeline Pankhurst - leading suffragette

Third was Tate Modern where I thoroughly enjoyed an exhibition of Matisse’s cut-outs, a third event that The Tablet alerted me to. Simple but effective.

Matisse Cut-Outs - at Tate Modern

I had a quick squizz around the rest of the gallery, very little of which I’d give tuppence for. But there was a small collection of Russian propaganda posters that caught my eye.

Propaganda, Russian style

Because it was there (and free!!), en route to my second ill-fated attempt to see the Chelsea Physic garden, I popped into the Saatchi Gallery. Even less to my taste than Tate Modern! On leaving, I asked for directions. The young woman was (I’m guessing) Polish, but by way of Chicago, or so it seemed. Like Chicagoans when I was there in 2011, it was as though the words “Sorry, I don’t know” were forbidden to pass her lips. She only sent me 180 degrees in the wrong direction!

This is art - Saatchi style

London … city of culture – the plays

16 - 25 August, 2014

I saw two plays, Great Britain and Skylight. Some time earlier I’d read excellent reviews of both in The Tablet. Lucky for me, it meant I’d booked before leaving home – they were both sell-outs.

Great Britain, at the Lyttleton Theatre in the National Theatre complex, was supposed to be a satire about the recent phone hacking scandals and the Murdoch press. There were plenty of laughs that I got and quite a few that I missed through the very fast delivery by the actors. I thought it was me but an English woman sitting next to me commented on it before I said a word. Also, the characters were so like those in “real life” that it was hard to separate them from reality. The “satire” was really nothing more than had been printed in newspapers for the length of the hearings into the matter. It was good but …. missed the mark a bit.

The National is undergoing renovation. I loved their construction site hording.

Welcome to the National Theatre

On the other hand, Skylight, a David Hare play being performed in the West End, was fabulous. Mind you, it would want to be for the price! I wouldn’t have gone but for Suzannah giving me a generous cash gift on my last day at work. I wanted to see Bill Nighy in action. I love his quirkiness – and wasn’t disappointed. Suzannah approved my choice because it also starred Carey Mulligan. I’d never heard of her, showing how out of touch I am!. She was terrific, on-stage for the entire show.

Wyndham's Theatre - Skylight set

London … city of culture – the music

16 - 25 August, 2014

There was a fair bit of music to this visit to London, starting with Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral on the day I arrived. (Is religion culture?) I also went to Evensong at Southwark Cathedral, then back to St Paul’s again. I love Evensong!

Shakespeare memorial at Southwark Cathedral

There was the sung Latin Mass at St James, Spanish Place (with an excellent sermon, as it happens) and crossover music of a different sort, a concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields: Vivaldi’s Gloria, a cello concerto by JC Bach and, best of all, Faure’s Requiem, so moving it brought tears to my eyes.

Before the concert -
at St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square

I’d wanted to hear the Requiem live for a very long time and thought it was going to be “it” when I recently went to a concert in Melbourne given by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. I was all set to buy the CD after the concert but …. the performance was seriously underwhelming, sounding tired and lacklustre, shown up all the more by the performance at SMitF by the Locrian singers and orchestra.

And there was my Proms concert experience, to say I’d been to a Proms concert, chosen because the date suited rather than for the music, although that too was good. I bought cheap seats, to the side and back of the orchestra, interesting watching the TV cameras in action. I was sitting there minding my own business just before interval when, at a very quiet spot in the music, with audience silent so you could hear a pin drop, I got a tickle in my throat. I almost killed myself trying not to cough. What an embarrassment. My throat took all of 24 hours to feel normal again.

Waiting for Prom 42 to begin -
at Royal Albert Hall