Gord thinks I should have added Ezra Pound to yesterday's ballot. I didn't add him because I had named his plaque as a favourite in an earlier post. However, he did come up a lot during the walk yesterday. The guide talked about the Imagist poets who basically started right here in our backyard--Hilda Doolittle and Richard Aldington lived right opposite Ezra Pound, two minutes away from us in a little courtyard off of Kensington Church Walk. So if anyone wants to vote for him, please do so.

Today we went over to Wigmore Hall with the intention of seeing one of their Sunday morning concerts. I was led to believe that you could just show up, but to our dismay the performance was sold out and there was only one standing ticket left. We purchased tickets for a concert two weeks from now instead, but on a whim we got in the line for return tickets. Several people stopped to sell single tickets to people ahead of us in line. Finally we were behind only two people. The box office called them over and sold them two single tickets and it looked like we were going to be out of luck. But right when they were going to close the doors, the box office released two more tickets and we were in! Gord was in the stalls (main floor) center and I had a front row balcony seat. It was a wonderful view, much better than down below where you couldn't see the stage because the floor did not slope upward. And the sound was excellent. The musicians were Jean-Guihen Queyras on cello and Alexandre Tharaud on piano. They played Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor D. 821 and Francis Poulenc's Cello Sonata. Queyras, by the way, plays a cello made by Gioffredo Cappa in 1696. What a treat to hear. And the price of admission (10 pounds) includes a glass of sherry after the performance!

From there we walked over to Grosvenor Square (home of the American Embassy) and down Brook Street to the Handel House Museum which occupies two adjacent buildings, #23 and #25 Brook St. It was pretty cool to be standing in the room where Handel composed the Messiah and Music for the Royal Fireworks (and other works). There was a harpischord concert going on for part of the time we were there, but it was also sold out (the concert space was very tiny).
Jimi Hendrix lived in #23 before he died, and there was a small permanent exhibition of photos taken of him in his flat there.

We then walked over to Oxford Street to see if we could find a coat for Gord. We went to John Lewis and found some beautiful wool coats for 495 pounds. A little out of our price range. The more casual jackets were 385 pounds. Gord thinks he can manage with his existing coat after all!

We did some shopping in John Lewis's foodhall (a glorified Waitrose) and went home. At 9 o'clock I watched the first of a BBC five-part series called Cranford, based on three of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels (another novelist to add to my list, I guess) about a small Cheshire town in the 1840s. It has a good cast that includes Judi Dench, so I wanted to see it, even though I'll only be here for the first three episodes. It was my kind of television, and I'm going to be upset that I'll miss the last two weeks. Hopefully it will make it to the U.S. some time.

Favourite plaques of the day (obviously):

Believe it or not, I was up by 8:15 this morning. It's after 11 PM now and I really don't feel so bad considering I had less than five hours sleep last night.

Okay, it's official. We spent all of our money! Well, the money we had in the bank account here that is. We went out to breakfast and then Gord went to the post office while I went over to the Kensington Town Hall to the London Christmas Fair 2007 that was held in support of the British Red Cross. These fairs are interesting in that they not only charge the vendors but they charge admission as well. But I'm off topic. I made a purchase with my debit card at one stall and when I tried to make a purchase at another stall the card was declined. Later we looked online to see what happened. When Gord went to the post office, he also stopped at the ATM machine (Barclay's Bank actually calls it the "hole in the wall") and withdrew 30 pounds. My purchase was 34.44 pounds. We are left with, get this, 18 pence! Can't cut it much closer than that! So now we'll have to use the ATM card from our bank at home. No problem (unless we go through that money too!). Fortunately our rent is paid in full and we just made a utility payment. But maybe we should try to eat out a little less. . . . Nah.

After the fair, Gord and I (and about twenty other people) finally did the Old Kensington Walk, one of the famous London Walks. The two-hour walk took us to places and streets in Kensington that were new to us and we learned quite a bit from our knowledgeable guide about how the city grew and why. But I have a dilemma. There were so many blue plaques on the tour that I can't possibly decide on a favourite. So I will narrow it down as best I can and then I am calling an election. You can vote any time between now and Sunday, November 25.

So here they are, in random order:






























Forgive me if they don't line up exactly. It's not that easy, especially since they're not all the same size, and they don't line up the same in the draft version as they do when I post it.

Now on to the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle--I hope it's an easy one. I'll check back in tomorrow.

I managed to check four items off my list today! Yeah!

First I stopped in at the Tower Bridge Exhibition, learned how the bridge was made, enjoyed the views from the two walkways on this sunny but brisk day, and went down to the Victorian engine rooms to try to understand the steam-powered hydraulic system that at one time controlled the bascule mechanism that opens the bridge for tall ships. I was told that they would be opening the bridge for a ship tonight at 5:15. Also on display was part of one man's collection of 1,500 postcards of the Tower Bridge.

I then walked over to the Design Museum, a neat, three-story white building overlooking the Thames. They had two special exhibitions, apparently no longer exhibiting any of their permanent collection. Taking up three-quarters of the space was Zaha Hadid: Architecture & Design. I was not familiar with her work, but I think now I could recognize her distinctive style. She was born in Iraq, got a degree in mathematics at the American University in Beirut, and moved to London in 1972 to study architecture. She was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize for Architecture. The exhibition had countless models of her structures, some that were never built, many that were completed, and quite a number of huge projects that are under construction. I especially liked the following: the Signature Towers in Dubai, the Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion in Spain, the Edifici Campus in Barcelona; the Ordrupgaard Museum Extension in Copenhagen, and the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati. They also had some of her furniture designs on exhibit as well as some cutlery, door handles, and tea sets, which were quite nice. (Katie, you would have loved it.) The rest of the museum was devoted to Matthew Williamson: 10 Years in Fashion, which was interesting. I won't go into a description of it because it is 1:30 AM as I write this and I have a lot more to say about my day. The photos will have to suffice.

I stopped in at City Hall and found it much more appealing on the inside than the outside. The ninth floor ("London's Living Room") is only open to the public on the first weekend of the month, so I could not see the "spectacular views." The building was designed by Fosters and Partners, who also designed the Millenium Bridge and the British Museum's Great Court. Its spherical shape covers 25% less surface area than a cube, thus using less energy. It is cooled by ground water brought up from below the building and flowing through the beams on each floor. Heat generated by computers and lights is recycled through the building's core, and recycled materials were used to fit the building. The chamber is glassed in so that one can look in at meetings. The exhibition in the lobby was Rebels and Troublemakers with paintings by Jolie Goodman and photographs by eastlondonphotographers.com.

I next walked over to Southwark Cathedral to have a look. For two pounds they let you take photographs, so I snapped away. The Lewisham Concert Band was performing a 40th anniversary concert tonight and the musicians were practicing. Very pleasant. The cathedral has a monument to William Shakespeare, the tomb of poet John Gower, and the Harvard Chapel in honour of John Harvard (benefactor of Harvard University), who was baptised here in 1607.

I walked quickly through Borough Market (it was much less crowded than Saturday) before meeting Gord at the London Bridge Station. We walked back over to the Thames just in time for the opening of the Tower Bridge. It was a sailboat of some kind that went through, and frankly it wasn't all that exciting! Oh well. But it was another good reason to eat out. We ate at a nearby Pizza Express chain, splitting a salad, a pizza and a bottle of red wine. Then we made the mistake of looking at the dessert menu! They had lemon sorbet and one of us had the bright idea to get some of that and mix it with some Prosecco to make Sgroppino. Well, they didn't serve Prosecco by the glass so we had to order a bottle! But it was delicious mixed with the sorbet. We had a very nice waitress and we even offered her a taste, but she declined because her manager was there! She was all excited about trying it at home though.

It's now 2:15 AM and I have yet to upload my photos. . . .

It's 3 AM now and I'm still waiting for some photos to upload. . . . Getting kind of tired.

At last I'm done and it's almost 3:15. Think I might be tired tomorrow.

I got a late start today because I spent the morning reading. Gord was working at home and suggested we go out for lunch, so we walked over to an Indian restaurant that we had been wanting to try--Zaika. It was fabulous, as good or even better than last night's meal at Veeraswamy.

After our meal, Gord went back home and I walked for a bit, then took the tube to Leicester Square to buy discount tickets for a play tonight. My plan was to go to Apsley House, also known as the Wellington Museum, located at Hyde Park Corner. But when I got there it was an hour before they closed and I was told that I would need at least 1-1/2 hours. Not wanting to have to rush through his fine collection of paintings, I opted to come back another day. I seem to be messing up a lot lately with my timing on things. I'm not going to get through my list if I keep that up. So I did some grocery shopping and came home early.

After a quick meal, we went to the Comedy Theatre to see Boeing-Boeing written by Marc Camoletti in 1961. It took both of us a while to start enjoying it, but it really was funny and brilliantly choreographed. I think the very bad American accent of one actor was off-putting and distracting but she didn't come back on again until near the end. Jean Marsh as Bertha was very good.

Favourite plaque of the day:


A belated happy birthday Roz!

I did some genealogy research online in the morning and then headed over to Somerset House with the intention of visiting the Gilbert Collection and the Hermitage Rooms. The Hermitage Rooms, however, closed for good a couple of weeks ago. The Gilbert Collection of Decorative Arts will also be closing and its contents given to the Victoria and Albert.

Over a forty-year span, Arthur Gilbert* and his late wife Rosalinde amassed a huge collection of gold and silver, snuffboxes, Italian mosaics and portrait miniatures from their home in Los Angeles. Arthur was born in Britain in 1913 (in London) and, in 1996, gave his collection to that nation, which earned him a knighthood in 1999. There are about 800 objects, and I think I saw them all! Room after room, poorly lit, except for the one that held Sir Arthur's furniture from his office in California, with a wax figure of him seated at his desk in his apparently signature tennis clothes.

A large part of the collection included his micromosaics, made from tiny opaque glass (tesserae), that look like paintings until viewed with the large magnifying glass they hand each visitor. The micromosaics included tables, vases, pictures often copied from real paintings, snuffboxes, and jewelry, mostly Roman from the late eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, but the collection also includes pieces from as early as the sixteenth century. Giacomo Raffaelli was one of the foremost mosaic artists.

The gold and silver was made up of huge, opulent ewers, cups, dishes, chalices, vessels, and a couple of "royal" gates. However, there was one particularly nice and rare ewer made in the Bronze Age (c. 2500 BC) in what is now Turkey, and is one of the earliest gold vessels in the world.

There was an exhausting number and variety of snuffboxes, very elaborately crafted. I tried to look at each one individually but it was difficult to keep my focus. I got tired of the audioguide commentaries, too. It's a shame, because they get lost amongst themselves. A half dozen of these boxes in a museum the size of The Hyde would be perfect.

Then there were the Florentine hardstone mosaics, called pietre dure, comprised of hardstones inlaid in wood and marble in cabinets, tables, clocks and pictures. Lastly Sir Arthur collected approximately 80 enamel portrait miniatures.

In addition to this, there was a temporary exhibition, Seaman Schepps 1881-1972: America's Court Jeweller. I don't even know what to say about this one--I was so exhausted by the time I reached these rooms that I barely absorbed any of it! It was big, outrageous jewelry with big precious and semi-precious stones, mostly from the 1930s and 1940s, and worn by Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn and the like.

Fortunately Gord called to suggest we meet for dinner. I had a little time to spare so I browsed an exhibition, What's Next for Schools?, at the adjacent Sorrell Foundation Young Design Centre. Between now and 2025, every secondary school in England and half of the primary schools will be rebuilt or refurbished. The exhibition looked at how involving the students in the design process and giving them some say can be beneficial to the designs while at the same time giving the children valuable life skills. There was a short film that demonstrated this with a school in Nottingham, I believe, where they got involved in the design of a new school uniform, and another school in Glasglow where the students came up with the idea to design a classroom with an indoor tree house.

We had an excellent dinner at Veeraswamy, the oldest Indian restaurant in Britain, opened in 1926. The flavors were delightful. Thank you Michael and Roz for suggesting it.

*I looked online and discovered that Sir Arthur died in 2001. I guess the museum hasn't updated their displays in quite a while because the information about him implies that he is still alive and playing tennis every day.

Yesterday was spent mostly on Oxford Street, and mostly in HMV checking out the CDs. We (Rick and I) also stopped into Selfridges and Primark.

Today, I saw Rick off on the bus to the airport. Came home and started laundry, answered some old email. I had intended to go out but then decided to just stay in and get caught up. Did step out a bit to do some grocery shopping.

Boy this was an exciting entry, wasn't it?

Sunday. I can now check off the Wellcome Collection from my list. American-born Henry Solomon Wellcome (1853-1936) moved to Britain and made his fortune through pharmaceuticals. He had a passion for history, medicine, and anthropology and was an avid collector. The Wellcome Trust is a medical research charity set up in his will. The museum deals with health and the body. One exhibition, Medicine Now, was divided into sections: The Body, Genomes, Malaria and Obesity, and Medicine Now. It was very interactive and interspersed with art. One was a map of the world outlined with sewn-on mosquitoes called Mosquito Coast, 2002, by Alastair Mackie. Twenty Three Pairs, 2002, by Andrea Duncan, is a digital print of 23 pairs of socks laid out as chromosomes. I can't help the way I feel, 2003, by John Isaacs, is a grotesque, not-quite-human form. Eat 22, 11 March 2001 - 11 March 2002 was a stream of digital photos of Ellie Harrison with everything she ate during a span of one year and one day. Every bite she took was photographed. There was a display with fleece and droppings from Dolly the sheep, and a bookcase filled with different diet books in our quest to lose weight. This is only a sampling of the displays. There was an interactive exhibit in which you were photographed and the photo was altered to give you the same proportions as an average face. You answer a few questions (drinker, smoker, over 40, etc.) and the computer then merges your face with those of people like you. There was another one that was supposed to do something with your fingerprints, but it was not working. (I wonder where this data is being stored!) A video by Chris Dorley-Brown, 15 Seconds (parts 1 and 2) 1994-2004, shows children who were photographed for 15-seconds in 1994, side-by-side with the same children ten years later, moments after they had watched their earlier video.

The other exhibition, Medicine Man, was a sampling of some of Wellcome's objects from his collection, "ranging from diagnostic dolls, Japanese sex aids, and from Napolean's toothbrush to George III's hair." The Plexy cases were divided into topics: Metal Instruments (mostly amputation saws and countless forceps), Artificial Limbs, Votive Offerings, Understanding the Body, Seeking Help, Beginning of Life, Treating Yourself, End of Life. There were also chairs, and masks, and paintings (with terrible lighting). But the prints were the best--drawers that you slide open to reveal surprises, including a Rembrandt etching and two Goya etchings.

We then walked down to the British Museum for a couple of hours. This is my fourth or maybe fifth visit this trip, but at the British Museum this is not a problem. There are always new rooms to discover. Rick went off on his own and Gord and I went up to see Faith Narrative & Desire: Masterpieces of Indian Painting in the British Museum - Celebrating 60 Years of Indian Independence. I had been wanting to see it and it's a good thing we stopped by because today was the last day. It, too, was divided into topics: Northern Courts, Barahmasa Paintings, Ragamala Paintings (our personal favourite because they are based on the ragas of Indian classical music), Paithan Paintings, and Company Painting (as in East India Company). We then wandered up a flight of stairs and found an exhibition on Japan that was also interesting, especially the netsukes. And then Gord discovered on the museum map a set of rooms in the basement that we think are the rooms containing the Roman sculptures that we had seen in 1996. We were just talking about them with Katie when she was here. So we scrambled down only to discover that the access to that level was blocked. The museum was going to close in thirty minutes and I find that they often start closing galleries early and some galleries remain closed all day if there is a staffing shortage. So, Katie, we'll check it out another time and let you know what we find.

When we left our house this morning there was a memorial service by the church for Remembrance Day and, Katie, the band was playing Elgar's Enigma Variations. Love that piece. Especially when you played it.

Favourite plaque of the day: Charles Darwin