A Spirited Show

On Saturday, 19 February, (going the usual half-price-ticket method) we saw Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” at the London Savoy theater. It is, of course, an often-staged show and one we had seen in Monterey at the local College’s theater. This was, naturally, a much more professional and elegant production and great fun. It’s interesting to see that “English drawing-room comedy” dating from the 1930s can still be funny and enjoyable. But then that’s part of the genius of it all.

Valentine’s Day Concert

Kathi’s Valentine’s Day gift to Chuck was tickets to a concert at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, put on by the London Musical Arts thirteen-piece string orchestra. The O’Neils were with us for this performance, too.

The beautiful music was interspersed with readings of love poems and sonnets by the actress wife of the conductor. We had spectacular seats, in the second pew, putting us no more than 6 or so feet from the front row of musicians. It was magical to be so close and to be able to watch closely the artistry of individual players. It almost made us feel like we were part of the orchestra.

The church itself is a beautiful one dating from the 1700s (on a site where there has been a church since the 1200s) and for the concert it was entirely lit by candlelight. It was easy to imagine we were listening to the music of Mozart or Borodin or Elgar or Chopin as it had been experienced when it debuted. Chuck concluded it was his favorite concert ever.

An Entertainment Interlude

We recently had a chance to enjoy a spate of London entertainment events. On Thursday night, February 10th, we attended the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s production of The History of the Bible – a very much tongue-in-cheek retelling of the entire Bible story in under 2 hours by a 3-man cast.

Their first success along these lines was the entire works of Shakespeare told in a similarly frantic theatrical event which we saw 5 years ago, and which was quite funny. This second production using the same idea is, as you might expect, highly irreverent, though with many laughs. It seemed to be a little less comprehensive than the Shakespeare parody where the audience could leave feeling that the players had at least captured a small theme or idea from each of the bard’s plays; in this Bible-based version there are major parts left out. However, it was still great fun and we enjoyed re-hashing many parts of it afterward with friends John and Carol, who attended with us.

By the way, John O'Neil is a colleague of Chuck’s here in London and, as it happens, the O’Neils have their home in Monterey – so we can expect to continue to see them after our return.

The next night, Friday the 11th, Chuck gave Kathi her surprise Valentine’s Day present. Ever since our arrival in London she had repeatedly mentioned wanting to see the musical Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. Chuck managed to get two very good seats, front row center of the first balcony, without mentioning them. She enjoyed the surprise and the show – which Chuck, too, found he liked better than he had expected to (having seen the movie, he didn’t think the show would be very interesting.) The production was spectacularly done – and the car was an engineering marvel, flying out over the audience on several occasions. (The engineering prowess of the whole thing was probably Chuck’s favorite part.) It was this business, with the car, that made our front row balcony seats even better than those on the main floor – the car flew over those on the ground floor (or orchestra) seats, while our slight elevation made the view ideal. So, all in all, a very enjoyable theatrical experience.

On Saturday we resumed our typical “half-price-ticket-booth” outings, checking to see what was available for that day and got tickets to “The Anniversary”, a fairly new addition to the theater scene (though it is a re-staging of a play first produced some years ago). It was a very inventive family comedy and delivered a lot of laughs.

So, there you have it – our confession to being “West End” or “London Theater” gypsies. We guess you could say we have the theater bug.

Yeoman of the Guard

On the evening of 8 February we had a chance to get a special tour (through the US embassy – it pays to have Kathi working there) of the Tower of London. As you probably know, the Tower isn’t really a “tower” – though it does have several towers in it. It’s a castle and fortress and is still, officially, a Royal Palace – though not a Royal Residence. As is true of many castles, there is a moat (no longer filled with water) an outer wall, an inner wall and a “castle keep” – the most central, fortified part which was to be used as the last ditch defense.

It was built on the order of William I of England – William the Conqueror, the Norman, in 1078 – how’s that for “old”? The original part, the Norman “keep”, took 20 years to complete, and by the time it was habitable William had died and his son was the first king to occupy the site. It was a Royal residence of the kings and queens of England for 500 years.

The Tower is a major tourist attraction because it is in very good condition compared to many ruined castles, is right in central London and is the home of the crown jewels, as well as a large museum showing armor and weapons from many centuries. However, tourists are only accommodated during the day. Our tour, as mentioned, was at night – there were about 40 of us in the group. We were there to witness the “ceremony of the keys”.

The outer, main gates, are closed each night at 10 pm. This is done in an elaborate ceremony which involves several of the Yeoman Warders (the red-clad “beefeaters”) and about a dozen soldiers. Imagine in the dark of the Tower green a lantern with a single candle, a large ring of jangling keys, armed soldiers to “protect” the keys and their carrier, shouting of orders, stamping of feet and marching to and fro – capped off by a bugler playing The Last Post (the British equivalent of “Taps”). It was all very well done, with a high level of the ceremonial precision and panache for which the British are justly famous. By the way the ceremony may not be photographed.

In the two hours before the actual ceremony we were treated to a very detailed tour of the interior of the Tower – remember it’s really a castle. In the center, there is a “village green” surrounded by houses, many dating back as far as the 16th century. About 40 of the Yeoman Warders who act as tour guides and the caretakers of the Tower live there with their families; some in very nice houses. There is a chapel, filled, of course, with memorials and many other areas not seen by the average tourist visitor. There is even a private pub just for the Yeoman Warders and their families – and we were permitted to have a drink there before the keys ceremony and to return there afterward for another. It was all very convivial and very impressive – and we felt we really got to see the Tower of London for the first time (even though most of us had been there before as daytime tourists). We felt privileged to witness it all, as the opportunity to do so is highly sought after and tickets are usually made available only through various forms of lotteries or drawings.

As we left the pub, we realized we had witnessed the locking of the gates from the INSIDE – and wondered how we would get out. Our guide Yeoman Warder, though, because we had been generous in purchasing raffle tickets while in the pub (with the profits going to charities chosen by the Warders), showed us a small gate we could use to leave. As we exited this “wicker gate”, as he called it, we were transported from the 16th century to the 21st and were surrounded again by the sights and sounds of central London which are not even noticeable when inside the walls.

Old Bailey

In mid-January, we took a night-time tour of the “Old Bailey” – the oldest courthouse in use in the UK, which is also the central criminal court and which is empowered to try cases from any part of the country. The courthouse took that name over the years because it was located on Bailey Street which, in turn, got its name because it ran next to one of the old Roman walls of London – and “bailey” is an old name for a castle wall.

The court is subject to the Lord Mayor of London who has the power to act as the judge anytime he should choose to do so – though today he doesn’t actually do that and would probably cause a huge stir if he did. He (or she, some of the Lord Mayors have been female) does, though, have the authority to free any prisoner – a power also not employed today. The remaining vestige of the Lord Mayor’s power is exercised by coming to the court four times a year to open it – a duty he must perform if he wishes to keep his authority over the court. (Yes, traditions in England seem to remain forever.)

Our guide was one of the court officers (we’d call him a bailiff) who took us to several of the courtrooms, to the prisoner holding cells and even into the ancient basement dungeon-like areas. Parts of the building are on what was the site of the old Newgate Prison which, itself, had a horrific history of unbelievably cruel treatment of prisoners. Touring these dark, cramped spaces during the dark of night was actually pretty spooky. Especially when we made the walk condemned prisoners used to make from the cell where they had their “last meal” to the site of the gallows.


The tour included a mock trial. The guide had us each pick a slip of paper from a hat, with the slips assigning each of us a role. Some of us were defendants, some were prosecutors or defense attorneys, some were jury members, and so on. Chuck was a courtroom guard, who stayed in the “dock” with the prisoners and made sure they remained orderly. Now, would you like to guess who was the judge? Yes, Judge Kathi reigned over all. The guide read us the essentials of a real criminal case, then had each of us play our respective roles. Kathi seemed to relish the act of passing sentence on the three (out of four) defendants the jury found guilty – all of whom were her fellow Embassy employees. (By the way, four years ago, when we toured an Irish whiskey distillery with about 60 people, three were chosen to be “tasters” for the group – and, of course, Kathi was one of those three, too; strange how that happens. Maybe we should have her buying weekly lottery tickets!)

We topped off the night on a somewhat lighter note – a meal at a nearby pub that specializes (as many London pubs do, unbelievably) in Thai food. Several other couples from Chuck’s office were with us for the tour and the pub visit – an unusual and very memorable night!

VIP Visitor

Kathi's been working at the US Embassy for a bit over a month; it's a part-time sort of arrangement where she's offered work when they need help and she has the choice of accepting or not. It works well and so far she's been working about half time.

Last Friday, Condoleeza Rice paid her first visit to a US embassy since being confirmed as Secretary of State -- and it was the embassy here in London. As part of her visit, a "meet and greet" was arranged, where she spoke to embassy employees and their families and took a few questions. We were, of course, in the group, along with a few of Chuck's colleagues whose wives also work in the embassy in various capacities.

Secretary Rice spoke impressively for about 20 minutes with no notes. It was the first time Chuck's had a chance to visit the embassy.

Italy in the Cold

In late January, we found ourselves on another trip -- this time for 9 days to Genoa, La Spezia, Riva Trigosa, Livorno and Rome in Italy. Chuck visited Italian defense companies in each of those cities (including some shipyards) and had great professional discussions with many of their executives. He hopes that this trip, too, will result in mutually beneficial exchanges of information. For this report, we'll concentrate on the non-business stuff.

We spent most of a weekend in Genoa before the "business" part of the trip. At the suggestion of Bill Solitario, a colleague at the Naval Postgraduate School, we paid a visit to the Cinque Terra, or five lands -- a series of five very isolated villages in the extremely mountainous coastal area between Genoa and La Spezia. It's amazing that people actually built their homes and villages in such isolated areas with such incredibley difficult terrain -- and did it without earth-moving equipment or power tools. Our whole trip to Italy was beset by very cold days with lots of wind -- we had snow flurries in Genoa and in Rome (and while we were in Rome there was nearly 2 feet of snow in Sicily!). Such weather probably does not show off this beautiful area nearly as well as warm sunny days -- but the beauty we saw in January, while being a lot more stark, was probably just as great. Our last stop in the Cinque Terra area was the monastery of Santuario Saviore, overlooking Rio Maggiore, one of the five villages. The views from the hilltop here made all the windy weather bearable.

Our stops in La Spezia, Livorno and Riva Trigossa didn't allow for much sightseeing -- except that Kathi did get a chance to drive through the popular (in the summer) seaside resort of Lerici. We took the train from LaSpezia to Rome and stayed in our hotel, a few blocks from the train station and near the center of Rome.

While Chuck was working, Kathi took a day to visit the Vatican Museum for a second visit there for her. The weather continued cold and windy for the whole visit, but we were able to see the incredible churches of Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Giovanni Laterno -- on different days. They are both enormous and incredibly filled with art and spectacular decoration. Other places we were able to see were the Pantheon, the Roman Forum (both new to Kathi) and the Colisseum. The sightseeing highlight, though, was the Galleria at the Villa Borghese. The art housed there is incredibly beautiful and seeing it displayed among the fantastically well-designed and decorated rooms of the Villa is especially wonderul. (Compared to seeing art displayed in this way, the Louvre in Paris almost seems like a warehouse of art.) The highlights of this beautiful place were three Bernini sculptures that formed the centerpieces of three of the rooms. These have to be seen to be believed -- we would never have thought it possible to carve such beautiful, three-dimensional and lifelike leaves and flowing clothing from marble -- to say nothing of the human forms. If you're ever in Rome, don't miss the Villa Borghese under any circumstances. (Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in the galleria.)

A few of the pictures from our Italian odyssey are at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/386974

Stockholm in January 2005

As you may already know, Chuck's job involves a fair amount of travel to encourage collaboration between researchers in other countries and in the US. However, he's still got something to learn about scheduling these trips -- one of the most recent was a trip to Stockholm, Sweden, in mid-January. We can' find any travel books or web sites that recommend Sweden as a January travel destination; but there we were.

Stockholm (which we had previously visited in August of 2001) is, of course a beautiful city -- and the Swedes a very modern and advanced people. However, during this most recent visit the weather was uniformly cold and rainy (they had had a lot of snow in November, but none in December or while we were there in January). And, remember, Sweden, being very far north, has very short periods of daylight in the winter.

None of this stopped us from finding the trip both profitable (Chuck) and enjoyable (both of us). Chuck (as well as a colleague, Jim DeCorpo) visited two of the major laboratory sites that are part of the Swedish Defense Research Agency. He and Jim met many scientists and engineers they hope to be able to "hook up" with US researchers in a number of interesting technical areas. In fact, they are planning a follow on visit, with several additional colleagues, in mid-March. (We are also unable to find books that recommend visiting Sweden in March; I guess scheduling will continue to require work.)

Kathi accompanied Chuck (and Jim's wife accompanied him, too) and the four of us were able to do a bit of sightseeing over two days. Of course with ship-designer Chuck along, we had to visit the Vasa museum -- a truly great museum dedicated to a 16th century Swedish ship that capsized and sank on its maiden voyage, and was raised about 40 years ago, preserved and put on display. It's a spectacular museum. We took a few long (and wet and windy) walks through the business/shopping area, watched ice skaters enjoying a rink in a public park and found a really good, fun restaurant in the Opera House, where we sat on stools at a bar and ate delicious traditional Swedish food.

You can see a few of the pictures from the trip at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/386937