Quiet, Please

Last Sunday, the 17th, we visited the British Library – sister institution of the British Museum. It’s in a brand new, very modern building. Being the British equivalent of the Library of Congress, it holds copies of all British books and has huge storage facilities (a large part underground) which are not open to the public. Scholars and researchers, of course, can register with the Library and get access to the “stacks” with the books.

In addition to serving this repository function, though, the Library is part museum, with lots of very famous and irreplaceable documents and volumes on display. There is, of course, the Magna Carta; and a Gutenberg Bible is accompanied by an interesting display about how the process of printing developed. There are dozens of incredibly beautiful illuminated religious books and manuscripts; there are fragments of various books of the New Testament from the 3rd and 4th centuries – some representing the earliest known copies of those books. Several of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks; Shakespeare’s First Folio; and handwritten (called “autographs” in Library-speak) originals of musical scores by Handel, Beethoven, Mozart and others are all on display.

The public spaces are perfect for a couple of very interesting hours of browsing. And, in keeping with British civilized traditions, there is a fine restaurant and very nice coffee shop, too. But one of our favorite spots was a really great book store – not huge, as you might expect in such an institution – but with a truly fine selection of titles. Between the two of us, there was hardly a single book we wouldn’t have wanted to buy if money were no object (and we had lots of time on our hands). Check some pictures at http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/259679

More London Scenes

We continue to explore London on foot and try to remember (with only moderate success) to take the camera with us. Chuck, especially, is in love with the thousands of examples of really interesting – in many cases grand; and in many beautiful – examples of architecture. The Victorian era buildings, especially, seem to have lots of character. And some of London’s residential streets are very charming. Visit http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/257740 for some more pictures of London sights.

The “Mane Event” at the Theater

On Saturday, the 16th of October, we went to a matinee performance of “The Lion King” on stage. Of course, many of you have probably seen the animated movie version – and perhaps many have seen the stage musical, too. We had not seen either. The music, singing and dancing were up to the usual high standards of London theater – though the plot is pretty rudimentary. But the costumes and the staging!! It would be hard to exaggerate how beautiful and inventive they were. A really great theatrical experience – not to be missed if you get the chance.

International Dinner

An annual tradition at St. John’s of Hyde Park is the International Dinner, in recognition of the diversity of the local population. Foods from all over the world are brought. This year’s dinner had a “Western” theme – with all of the Brits and people from all over the world trying to act and look like cowboys.

Kathi was one of the organizers and spent most of that afternoon helping with preparation of the hall – and was one of the hostesses serving that evening. (The dishes were washed by a couple of young people actually hired for the occasion, so no one in the congregation had to do that. (They’re soooooo civilized here)).

One of the highlights was the “human fruit machine”. “Fruit machine” is British for “slot machine” – you know, most slot machines have fruit on the dials with, for example, three cherries being the jackpot. Our fruit machine was made up of three of the young girls of the church, each wearing a hat festooned with fruit. They each carried a bag with several pieces of fruit (one of each kind). A customer paid 50p (50 pence; half of a pound) and pulled the arm of one of the girls – the three girls than spun around a number of times with each of them reaching into their own bag and extracting – all together – one of the fruits from it. If they all matched, the customer won.

The dinner was held on the weekend when we had twenty wardens from Swedish churches visiting our parish and some of the other church-based charity organizations in the area. Apparently, the Swedish Church does not have a tradition of volunteers doing much of the work of the church, and the purpose was for them to meet with volunteers and office-holders at our church and others to discuss how they might make more use of volunteers.

Other highlights were the apple-bobbing and the music. For some reason, for this Western-theme dinner, rather than a country band (which might have been hard to find here) we had a very good jazz band. And there was a raffle of donated items, with lots of fun prizes (which the Swedes seemed to win in disproportionate numbers)! Visit http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/259632 for pictures of the evening.

There goes the Neighborhood

We learned recently that Madonna, (yes, her), has a London home and that it's only about 3 blocks from our flat. It's actually in quite a modest-looking building; she probably isn't there very often.

We haven't had occasion to drop over for a cup of sugar yet, but maybe one of these days.

There's a picture at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/247124/1/9648201

We haven't checked, but are sure there must be a picture of our flat on her blog.

"Democracy" Really is Best

On October 10th we attended a dramatic play – “Democracy” – at Wyndham’s Theater. The subject is Willy Brandt’s time as Chancellor of West Germany when he set in motion the reconciliation that ultimately led to the re-unification of West and East Germany. It was, apparently, a time of great political infighting in West Germany, with frequently shifting political coalitions (the play, while fiction, accurately depicts the real events of the time). After Brandt was in office for 4 years it was discovered that his closest advisor/staff member was, in fact, a spy for East Germany. The cast is all-male, reflecting the reality of German politics of the day; they all did a masterful job. The dialog was exceptionally intelligent.

The play has received numerous awards and great critical acclaim. Our assessment is that the plaudits are well-deserved. In fact, it is the best dramatic play we have seen and received Kathi’s rare 5-star evaluation.

Plaque(s)

Chuck had a cap come off one of his teeth while at Karissa's wedding. A few days after our return, we began the process of getting it replaced. One of the first things we learned was that our medical coverage here doesn't include prosthedontics -- and the replacing of a cap is defined (by the Navy) as prosthedontics. After several more false starts, we did find a nearby dentist who did the job.

The moral of the story for us is: "Dentists may be hard to find, but not plaque(s)".

See: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/247090/9/9646918 Make sure you go all the way to the last picture.

I guess the question of who is a "patriot" depends on your point of view.

If you looked at the pictures, you realize by now that this is really about historical plaques -- not dentists. London, of course, has been the site of a lot of history -- after all, for several centuries it was the capital of the largest empire on earth. History is everywhere here -- and historical plaques are equally ubiquitous. It sometimes seems as if there's at least one on every block. With the passage of time, though, the honored individuals have faded into obscurity -- at least for these visiting Americans. (Did anyone know who William Wilkie Colllins or F. Paolo Tosti were?)

Is Humanity Killing Itself?

That was the provocative title of a dialogue we attended on 30 September at St. Paul's Cathedral. This fall the Archbishop of Canterbury initiated a series of 4 dialogues on 4 subjects of concern over a period of several weeks. We were only able to attend the last, on the subject above. We went as a group with about 15 others from our church.

As an aside, St. Paul's is part way through a major internal cleaning and renovation and the completed parts are stunningly beautiful. Also, we both found ourselves really liking the Archbishop, who seemed (in addition to being very bright and very spiritual) a very down-to-earth and likable "bloke".

The speakers, in addition to the Archbiship (Dr.Rowan Willians), were Dr. Ian Smith (MD) of the World Health Organization, and Mr. Peter Bains, a Senior Vice President of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The whole was moderated by Dame Elizabeth Butler Sloss, president of the Family Division of the Old Bailey -- the UK's most senior woman judge. The dialog covered the effect of epidemic disease in many parts of the world, explored what the developed nations can and cannot do about it, the role of pharmaceutical companies and other medical entities, and so on. Frankly, we were pleased at what an intelligent, well-balanced discussion it was.

At the end of the 2-hour period each of the panel members was given a chance to wrap up his views. Dr. Smith reminded us there was much we could all do to improve world health and that many of us, including himself, could probably contribute by losing some weight. Our church group then adjourned to a nearby pizza restaurant.

We hasten to add that most of us ordered various kinds of salads.

Blessing of the Horses

A tradition at St. John's Hyde Park is the annual blessing of the horses. Nearby Hyde Park is home to several hundred horses that are stabled there, with many of them (and their owners) participating in the annual blessing ceremony held on 19 September.

The church visible in the background in some of the pictures is St. John's (our church in London). Visit http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/244272/1/9533119 for the photos.

The tradition of blessing the horses developed in the 1960s when many of the stables in the area were threatened with closure. It is viewed as an opportunity to draw to our attention that horses are still very much a part of our lives in central London, and on the Hyde Park estate in particular.

(The main riding trail in Hyde Park is called "Rotten Row". This famous bridle path is almost four miles long. In the 17th century the road was used by William III, who found the walk from Kensington Palace to St. James was too dangerous. So he had oil lamps installed along the route, thus creating the first public road to be lit in England. The term 'Rotten Row' is derived from the French 'route du roi' or King's road.)

Finally!!

Posted 5 October

Our household items shipment arrived yesterday -- the promisted 4 to 6 weeks being, in reality, 13 weeks. Now we face the same question over and over "why did I think we'd need that?"

"I Vant to Be Alone"

Posted 3 October

I mentioned that Saturday night, 2 October, we had dinner at a Swedish restaurant near our flat. It was our second visit and we found the food wonderful both times. The restaurant is called Garbo's and is named, of course, for the famous Swedish film star who made it big in Hollywood -- Greta Garbo. The owner clearly has a great affection for her -- the walls are filled with great drawings and paintings of Garbo and with posters of her movies. This may become a "regular" place for us.

A London Weekend

Posted 3 October-

It seemed like a good idea to share with you a bit of what our London weekends are like, so we'll describe what we did the first weekend in October. On Friday night, after Chuck got home from the office, we made a spur of the moment decision to try to get theater tickets right at a theater box office. (Just before the show, they make tickets available to seniors at a special price -- about 1/3 instead of the 1/2 price at the half-price booths.) We went to the Fortune Theater to see "Woman in Black", billed as a suspenseful thriller. (It's been running for 16 years, though we'd never heard about it until we were here). The show lived up to its billing and was well-done. Kathi gave it 3.5 stars on our 5 star system -- Chuck gave it 4.5 stars. Chuck was really impressed with the craftsmanship involved in pulling off all the suspenseful moments and plot turns. In any case, it was different from any other play either of us had seen. The theater was near Covent Garden and we ate at a restaurant around the corner from there -- and decided we'd revisit Covent Garden Market the next day.

On Saturday we decided to spend a couple of hours at the British Museum. It's much too big to try to visit all at once, so we've embarked on a program of regular visits, but keeping each one to a couple of hours. (Now that they've removed the admission fee, this is practical -- it removes the feeling that you must visit to exhaustion to make it worthwhile. We regularly leave a donation to help out.)

Saturday's visit was confined to the large wing on the Enlightenment, when much about modern archeology and the scientific method was first worked out. Early in the afternoon we decided to walk to the Covent Garden Market area. (By the way, Covent Garden used to be the London flower market. In the opening scene of "My Fair Lady", Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering are leaving the Opera House (right next to Covent Garden) when they encounter the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, at Covent Garden.) The old market has been turned into a place of numerous shops, cafes and restaurants, right in the midst of a part of the West End theater district. When we had glimpsed it Friday night, it seemed worth coming back to, which we now did on Saturday afternoon. You can see some photos of our visit to the Museum and to Covent Garden at:
http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/239542.

We spent a couple of hours browsing the area, watching some of the "buskers" (sidewalk entertainers), who included mimes (of course), singers, musicians, jugglers, etc. Buskers, in fact, are a bit of an institution in central London, including in the Underground stations. When our feet gave out and the rain started, we headed back home on the Underground and went to dinner at a Swedish restaurant a couple of blocks from the flat. And so ended a Saturday of our London Sojourn.