Beautiful sunset tonight from our rooftop.









And, we finished the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Yeah!

I may not get a chance to post an entry for a few days. Stay tuned.

Early Monday morning we caught a train to Liverpool. The 2-1/2 hour ride was uneventful except for this one man in our designated “quiet” car who was just waiting for people to slip-up. So when a man in front of us made a cell phone call to confirm an appointment, the self-appointed watchdog actually got up and walked over to the man to tell him it was a “quiet” car and that he was not allowed to talk on the phone. The man ignored him and finished up his conversation. Then a woman behind him used her cell phone and he told her the same thing. She, however, talked back to him and then he appealed to everyone around him to back him up. No one said a word. The woman finished her call and all was well after that.

Then when we got off the train at Liverpool, I was looking up at some Tate Liverpool posters and stepped right off a curb, falling right onto the pavement and breaking the fall with my wrist and my knee. A classy move. The only thing bruised was my ego, fortunately. But honestly, we were on the platform! Why would they put a curb in the middle of the platform?

Liverpool is not what I would call a very pretty city, but it is where the Beatles were from, which was our reason for going (although this was Gord's second visit). We did the Magical Mystery Tour, but the special magical mystery bus (pronounced “boose” up here) had broken down so we had to ride in a regular chartered coach. We saw where George Harrison was born, where Paul lived for part of his life, where John lived with his Aunt Mimi, and finally one of the eight homes Ringo lived in growing up. We saw Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and Mathew Street where the original Cavern Club was and where the new one is. In fact, we had a pint there and also one at the Cavern Pub. Neil, our tour guide, was very entertaining. He just happened to mention that he played John’s boyhood friend Pete Shotton in the 2000 NBC movie In His Life:The John Lennon Story. There was a Beatles trivia quiz and guess who got all of the answers? Well I knew one of them and someone knew another, but Gord got all of the obscure ones of course. He tried not to answer them all, but when nobody else raised their hand he did.

We stayed down in the Albert Dock area which was, obviously, right by the water. It was pretty isolated at night but we did find one restaurant that was open for dinner and it turned out to be very nice, as was the sunset earlier.

The city in general is a lot less crowded than London, that is until we did the Beatles Story on Tuesday. Located underneath our hotel, this is an exhibition giving the history of the Beatles, with audio guides, but there had to have been seven or eight school groups going through in the two hours we were there. Apparently the Beatles are on the school curriculum. And apparently all of the teachers forgot to tell the kids about museum etiquette because it was very difficult to hear the audio over the children talking and laughing.

So now I know a lot more about the Beatles.

We spent the afternoon at the Tate Liverpool which is also located at Albert Dock. Their collection is primarily twentieth century art, or at least that is what was on exhibit. I became even more familiar with the Turner Prize winners from the other day--Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread. Instead of cows, this time Hirst had a piece that was a pretty, mandala-type, symmetrical design that, upon closer inspection, was made up entirely of different butterfly wings stuck on a purple painted surface. They had some very nice sculpture, including a David Smith, as well as Dame Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, Julio Gonzalez (who reminded me of David Smith), Brancusi, Giacometti, Degas's Little Dancer. There was an Andy Warhol room with several works, a room of bathers by Pierre Bonnard, Degas, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, a couple of Francis Bacons and Jackson Pollocks, a Whistler, a Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, and I'm sure I've left out more than half. There was also a small Bridget Riley exhibition. I don't know how she could paint her pieces without getting dizzy. I couldn't look at each piece very long so I can't imagine painting them. The movement in them was incredible.

It was fun but we were more than ready to get on the train and head home.

Happy birthday to two of my brothers, Mark (42) and John (60!). Heal well, Tom, from your heart surgery. Roz, you too. We're thinking of all of you with love.

The day was nice so we went to Greenwich by boat. Our narrator was a witty character who pointed out interesting things along the Thames and added some jokes for the entire sixty minute ride. Had some Portuguese food in Greenwich's weekend market--I had a fritter with chick peas and cilantro, Gord had a little fish pie thing, and we shared a sardine fritter--a little more greasy than we would have liked.

We had purchased tickets for a 1-1/2 hour walking tour as soon as we arrived and got to the meeting place in the visitor centre a few minutes early. No one else was there but finally our guide arrived and then a while later the three other people who had purchased tickets decided to show up, a Russian woman about my age, and two German women in their twenties. After a brief introduction and just when we were about to set out, the Russian woman asked if we could wait two minutes while she went into the shop to buy something. We had already started almost ten minutes late--I couldn't believe she would ask. But Ago, our guide who was originally from Ghana, agreed. So we had to wait some more. Then Ago said we were going to head to the market first and my first thought was that we can't let the Russian woman go in there. It was a very interesting market, one in which I could easily spend two hours exploring, but we were on a tour and didn't have much time. Well we all behaved ourselves--much less fun but much more practical.

We stopped in at St. Alfege Church where General Wolfe is buried (and which is on the site where the Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered in 1012), then walked past the National Maritime Museum and Queen's House, in front of which Ago talked about Greenwich's history for a while before we headed up to the Royal Observatory. It was a good little climb, but fortunately I've been in training for the past five weeks so it wasn't too bad (if my cholesterol isn't down considerably when I get home I'm going to be very disappointed). Ago did some more talking, we saw a statue of General Wolfe, and we happily ended the tour. Instead of going into the observatory (Ago filled us in on everything we would have learned inside anyway, the crowds were intense, and we could see the prime meridian from behind the iron gates), we opted instead to head down to Queen's House, begun by Inigo Jones in 1616 for Queen Anne of Denmark wife of James I). She died before it was completed and Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, got to enjoy it instead. It supposedly was used as a model for the White House. Inside we raced through the collection of art, wonderful for anyone interested in ships at sea, and then hurried down to Christopher Wren's Old Royal Naval College to see the Painted Hall with ceilings painted by Sir James Thornhill and the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul with its altarpiece by American-born artist Benjamin West. There was filming going on for a movie and they had converted a large outdoor area into an eighteenth-century market. In just a few minutes you got the sense of how involved it is to create a set and also how tedious and slow-moving it is to film a scene.

We got back to the pier in time for the last boat back. We had the same narrator but this time he wasn't as amusing. There were just a few too many digs at politicians and people who could afford the real estate along the river. But the ride itself was very enjoyable. It was also very pleasant walking through Greenwich Park.

I am sorry to say that by the time we ate dinner and called daughters and parents, it was nine o'clock, much too late to start the movie. It will have to wait until later this week. Another busy day is scheduled for tomorrow.

Favorite sign of the day: Humped Pelican Crossing

Now if anyone can tell me the difference between a zebra crossing and a pelican crossing, please enlighten me.

We spent the day at the Tate Britain, first at the Millais exhibition which I really enjoyed. There were seven galleries of his works, basically one for each period in his very successful career, a career that earned him 30,000 pounds a year in the second half of the nineteenth century (good thing, too, because he had eight children). They had a drawing he did when he was nine years old that was pretty amazing. The exhibition included probably all of his famous paintings, including Ophelia, Bubbles, and Cherry Ripe. One of my favorites was The Order of Release. You could just feel the weight of the sleeping baby in the mother's arms.

We then went into an exhibition that couldn't have been more different, Turner Prize: A Retrospective. The Turner Prize has been awarded since 1984, as a way to draw greater public attention to contemporary art. They had works by the winners each year since its inception, as well as wall text that included those artists who made the shortlist each year. (They will be announcing the winner for 2007 next week at the Tate Liverpool.) Pieces included:

1. 1995 winner Damien Hirst's Mother and Child, Divided 1993-2007, which was a mother cow and baby calf, both sliced cleanly down the middle lengthwise, with each piece in its own separate clear container filled with formaldehyde. You could walk between the two sides of the mother and examine her insides if you were so moved. The point? To use shock as a way to explore mortality, to make aspects of life and death visible.
   
2. 1997 winner Gillian Wearing's 60 minute silence 1996, which is a 60-minute video of 26 police officers lined up in three rows as if they were having a formal photo taken. They were to stand as still as possible for one hour and you could see them getting more fidgety as the minutes passed. I was too, but I was determined to see how it ended, and I sat through probably the last thirty-five minutes of it. It was a very exciting finish so if you think you might want to see it and don't want to spoil the surprise, then don't read the following--several of them removed their hats, some got up, and one man gave a loud yell of relief that it was over. The point? The raising of prevalent questions about control and surveillance.
   
3. 2001 winner Martin Creed's Work No. 227: Lights going on and off 2000, which was one gallery in which bright lights from the ceiling would go on and off at five-second intervals. The point? To challenge traditional ideas of display and to invite visitors to reevaluate rules and conventions.
   

I think you get a sense without my having to describe every piece. If you'd like to know more, you can always go to the Tate's website.

Tonight we watched the second of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers. This is all the more incredible given the fact that Gord and I rarely sit down and watch television or a movie together, and probably never two nights in a row. We're going to try for three. Can we do it? Find out tomorrow.

Okay, we've established that I don't like crowded sidewalks. But what I do like is that you can't get through a day without hearing at least four or five different languages being spoken. That's one of the things I always like about going down to NYC and in the galleries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. You just don't get that in Saratoga. Now if I could just understand what they are all saying . . . .

Today was another concert at St. Mary Abbots Church by Royal College of Music students. A string quartet played Mendelssohn's Quarter in F minor, opus 80 that had me crying in the third movement (caught me during a weak moment, I guess). Then a wind trio played a piece by Gordon Jacob, a composer who taught at the RCM until 1966.

I had planned a great afternoon. I was going to take the subway to the Westminster exit and then walk through all of the central parks, St. James's Park, Green Park, Hyde Park (with a stop at the Serpentine Gallery), Kensington Gardens, and ending at our flat. But Gord just happened to get off of the subway I was about to get on and suggested we go for lunch. So I decided to consume calories rather than burn them, which is always more fun. It was a nice enough day to eat outside so we found a place near our flat.

After lunch we stopped in at Whole Foods for milk. It really is a wonderful store and if you just buy a few things at a time it doesn't seem so expensive. I always wanted to see what they had on the top floor and discovered that there is seating for 350 people with various food stations around the perimeter and in the middle. There was actually a DJ at the entrance(!), then a pub, and vegan, vegetarian, and carnivore stations on one side, a coffee bar and dessert bar with gelato and crepes in the middle, and then an oyster bar, sushi bar, tapas bar, and a fair trade gift shop. It was pretty amazing, although I doubt we would ever be tempted to go to the pub there. It's just not the Elephant and Castle.

We went home from there for the rest of the day and night. We were hoping to go to Ronnie Scott's to see Georgie Fame but alas there were no tickets to be had. But remember that lovely dinner party with the magically refilling glasses (as J so aptly described them) last weekend? Well, at some point that night I apparently mentioned that we hadn't yet seen the Lord of the Rings films (well we rented the first one, The Fellowship of the Rings, once but I slept through a good portion of it). Well, lo and behold, when I got home, I had the whole set of the extended version in my hands (something like twelve hours!). I guess I borrowed them! Anyway, we watched the first one tonight and I only nodded off for about ten minutes which is pretty good for me (albeit at a crucial point near the end). We'll watch the rest soon, and I can then remove them from my Netflix list. :-)

I figured out a way to lessen the pedestrian problem. I take the back streets whenever possible; although most of the places I frequent are on the main roads, I can walk most of the way to them by side streets. It's much better.

After making a quick library stop, I took the subway to Origin, the London Craft Fair at Somerset House. This was the second and final week, showcasing 158 very talented designers of ceramics, textiles, furniture, glass, leather, millinery, jewelry, silver and fine metal work, wood, and more. The first week included a different set of designers. There were some very unique, interesting, wonderful things, none of which I could afford to buy, but it was a whole lot of fun to look. Lots of feltwork, beautifully woven scarves, resin and acrylic jewelry, silver and gold. I learned that what we call a woodworker is called a woodturner here, someone who turns wood on a lathe.

From there I walked to St. Martin-in-the-Fields where I picked up their schedule of concerts for October and November and checked out their crypt, with the Brass Rubbing Centre, shop, and cafe. The renovation project is still going strong, with the whole exterior facade fully shrouded. I'm sure it will be beautiful when it is finished sometime next year.

I walked across the street and had tea at the Portrait Cafe in the National Portrait Gallery and then walked around the corner to the National Gallery and took their 2:30 tour. I've been impressed with their docents/educators. The hour-long tour included these works, all paintings except for the last one:

1. Coronation of the Virgin with Adoring Saints, 1370-1, attributed to Jacopo di Cioni and workshop, done for a church in Florence;
   
2. The Coronation of the Virgin with Adoring Saints, 1407-9, by Lorenzo Monaco, also painted for a Florence church;
   
3. La Madonna della Rondine (Madonna of the Swallow), 1490-2, by Carlo Crivelli;
4. Equestrian Portrait of Charles I, 1637-8, by Anthony Van Dyck; and
5. Colonel Tartleton and Mrs. Oswald Shooting, 2007, by Yinka Shonibare MBE

She talked about perspective and foreshortening, or lack thereof in the earliest piece, and she mentioned a couple of good basic art books which I failed to note down--Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art was one.

I walked across Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall to the Banqueting House, but it had closed early for a "function." Just as well, for it was theatre night.

We have spent over a week trying to find the particular brand of limescale preventer that our landlords use in the washing machine, because I'm so afraid of messing up the laundry again. Today I was determined--I looked in three stores and finally found it at Waitrose. Gord had been there last week and didn't see it, nor did the employee who was helping him, so maybe they just got in a fresh supply.

Tonight we went to the Royal Court Theatre to see Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros. It was quite a play. There were parts I thoroughly enjoyed, and other parts were lost on me (but having that glass of wine right before it started probably didn't help). Anyway, it had to do with conformity, will-power, and guilt--I think!

One thing I won't miss about London is having to deal with all the people on the sidewalks. It's like a constant Times Square. At times it feels like an obstacle course, or that I'm trying to maneuver my way through a football field with people coming at me, and I'm so tempted to elbow them out of my way as I try to get past. But of course I don't. It's worse in the late afternoon, when the people passing out the free daily papers stand right in the middle of the sidewalk turning this way and that to distribute the news. And then there are the groups of two or three people walking towards you who take up the whole sidewalk and expect everyone to get out of their way, instead of moving over to take up only half so that others can get by. (And they're usually the ones walking at a snail's pace in front of you, too.) Oh right, I forgot, it's all about them. Or those who stop in the middle to have a chat. Maybe one gets used to it, but I don't know.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. That is one reason it was so nice going up to Hampstead Heath today. It was like a breath of fresh air, literally. My goal was to visit Kenwood House, but the Heath was an added bonus. It was a 30- to 40-minute walk from the Hampstead tube station through the Heath to Kenwood House. The house is really a neoclassical mansion that was built in 1616, and remodeled by Robert Adam in the 18th century. Lord Iveagh Guinness (of the brewing company) donated it and his wonderful art collection to the country in 1927. The collection includes a Rembrandt self-portrait, Portrait of the Artist, Vermeer's The Guitar Player, a Frans Hals, a rather nice Turner (I'm surprised to hear me admit that, but it was an early work), many Gainsboroughs, Reynolds, and Van Dycks, and a Swiss female artist of the 18th century that I have previously overlooked, Angelica Kauffmann. They are having a special exhibition of her work beginning October 17, so I will have to make another trek up there. Not a hardship.

The walk back to the tube station was delightful. The heath is 320 hectares (890 acres) of rolling meadows and woods. I passed a Barbara Hepworth sculpture and a Henry Moore. I was afraid I would get lost, but fortunately didn't. As it was I got home over an hour later than I should have. It was student dinner night, and a nice group of students it was.

Plaque of the day: John Constable