Got up at 7.30. Jenny ill during the night. Did not sleep well Blue skies with Jet streams. Blood Pressure 99/68 Pulse 95. Today we went to Chiswick House in Chiswick. We went to Hammersmith on the Hammersmith and City Line and then took the bus. We had a slight mishap in that we got on the right numbered bus but were going the wrong way. The driver generously gave us a free ride ticket and we went to the other side of the road and got on the right bus and went the correct way. Before we went into Chiswick House we first went to the Chiswick Town Market. I had some Moroccan meat concoction. Very bland. I must say I am disappointed at the standard of street food that I have sampled in London. We did get talking to a couple - he's from Ireland - she's from Mauritius - over lunch. But the thing that was interesting was - he came to London at the same time I did and he has never left. He loves London. And he lived in Earls Court when I did. They live in Chiswick. He works at Heathrow. What a place to work. I told him how lucky he was. He says no Australians live in Chiswick now. 45 years ago Chiswick was the preferred choice of Australians. Chiswick House is unusual. Lord Burlington went on a European tour when he was 20 (as you do) and fell in love with Italy. He had 120 crates of artworks shipped back and when he came home he determined to build an Italianate House to rival anything in Italy. He did. The bloke must have had unlimited cash. Where did he get it from? Its never said. The House can only be describes as Italianate. Maybe Roman. Lots of columns. Lots of statues. Lots of concrete. A very Italian looking garden. Set in 65 acres. All remodeled to include hothouses, lakes, cypress hedges etc. Money was no object. Some paintings inside the house. None of them any good. As usual with these people he had more money than taste. But he loved the house. In his time Chiswick was a fair way out of London. He also had a house in Piccadilly but he preferred to live in Chiswick. He loved it. We can forgive him. Very extensive grounds - warm day - lots of people taking advantage of the grounds. Lot's of Italians looking at the house and grounds. To be precise the great majority of people looking were Italian - all very excited. Maybe the House is famous in Italy. Italians like all Europeans love London. And I mean Love London. And why not. But will they still come when Britain exits the EEU. I saw a woman asking why she did not get her change in Euro's at the cafe. The waiter explained she could pay in Euro's but he would have to give her change in sterling. I'm not sure she understood. No doubt his bosses would have made a killing in the exchange rate. We took the bus back to Hammersmith and then The District Line to East Putney to look at where James stayed when he was in London. A very nice place. Very handy. I could easily live there. Nice surroundings. I knocked on the door but no one was home. We took photo's. A diversion in Putneys Library which was open on a long weekend. Lots of students studying hard. Some hard nosed Library lovers. One old woman could hardly walk but was determined to read The Daily Telegraph. I have to say they have better books than Benalla. Many more new and up to date books than Benalla. A wider range as well. More and better books on popular culture. We then caught the bus back to Piccadilly Circus. An interesting journey along a road I used to jog along 2 or 3 times a week. Of course I cannot remember a thing about it. There are lots more shops. More people. The road goes back through near Earls Court. After that meanders through various interesting places that are now familiar to us. Hyde Park. Green Park corner. Knightsbridge. Chelsea. And so to Piccadilly Circus. The centre of London. Except there is no centre. On the way we had a first. The driver accidentally strayed off his route and had to turn around. Try turning around on a Double Decker bus in London's narrow streets. But he did it. So to home. Our last day in London. Tomorrow we leave. Blood Pressure 156/80 Pulse 81.
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Got up at 7.30. Clear Blue skies. Another John Wayne Movie on TV. Nothing else. British TV is even more sensational chasing than Australian. No news so lets concentrate on some trivial matter and sensationalise it to death. Its all about Ken Livingstones Antisemitism at the moment. In Australia the media are anti left. Here they are not so much anti left but are all trying desperately to conform to the ratings chase formula. Anything to sensationalise. Barack Obama's quite well reasoned arguments as to why Britain should stay in The EEU for instance.
Barack Obama's comments are the first sensible comments I have heard said in the campaign. The total debate for leaving comes down to two points :- - We don't need anyone else telling us what to do. - (we have big ego's but we don't care) - Lets send all Eastern Europeans and Middle Easterners home - (there are too many foreigners who will not conform) Blood Pressure 122/67 Pulse 70 We left about 10.30 and went to Baker Street. We then walked to Marble Arch along Baker Street and then along Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner. We walked inside the Park. It was very pleasant weather. Lots of people out enjoying themselves in the Park doing normal things. A fair smattering of tourists. People on Boris Bikes. Its a long weekend here this weekend. Bank Holiday Monday. We went to the viewing level of Wellingtons Arch. Not much of a view. You can look into the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The trees now have their leaves so you cannot see a lot. A small museum in the building. Much extolling of Wellington. And lauding his victories over Napoleon. There is a map showing how much of Europe that France either controlled or dominated during Napoleon's time. Its quite extensive. Even Hitler would have been jealous. After Wellington defeated Napoleon the rest of Europe was very grateful. Everything had changed. France was no longer a threat. And they showed how grateful they were. He has lots of European awards. Medals etc. Decorations. The British Government gave him the equivalent of 70 million in today's money. He bought Apsley House with part of the money. We then walked along Piccadilly until we found a Pret to eat in. I overindulged. We have kept pretty well to a proper diet while we have been here. We are hoping we both might lose some weight. Today I overdid it and fell off the wagon. Despite its convenience a Pret can be expensive if you don't stick to the rules. You must only have a soup and a bread stick. Today I felt hungry and overdid it. We walked back to Apsley House. The present Duke still lives here. The Museum part is on two floors. Its not that good. The usual excess of portraits. Lots of Napoleon. Lots of Wellington. One by Goya where Goya had already painted a portrait of Napoleons brother - who had been installed as King of Spain by Napoleon. Wellington defeated him and restored the Spanish Royal Family and in gratitude they asked Goya to do a portrait. Goya simply changed the head from Napoleons brother to Wellingtons. The painting isn't very good. There are some Rubens and Titians - not anything that I recognised. They have a strict no photographs policy with lots of security making sure its complied with. But I made sure I photographed the Velazquez painting of Pope Innocent which somehow ended up in Wellingtons collection. You could not say that Wellington had good taste. This purchase of this painting must have been a mistake. Wellington did have an ego. His Statue on his horse (its a large statue) was on a plinth that was interfering with traffic in Park Lane. It was suggested that they remove it from the plinth and locate it elsewhere to free up traffic around Hyde Park. Over my dead body said Wellington. I will resign first. They had to wait until he died to move it. But move it they did and its no longer interferes with traffic. The most expensive painting - or the painting Wellington paid most money for - is a painting of Chelsea Pensioners reading the news from Waterloo. Once again its not very good but of course it does glorify Wellington. I had a little snooze on their very comfortable lounges they have in the Gallery Room. Its tiring constantly walking about. I am not as strong as I was 45 years ago. We went to the Australian/New Zealand War Memorial. Could only find Milawa and Swanpool on the list of names of places where people came from when they enlisted. They didnt put names of people on the memorial as is usual - they put the names of the places they came from. There are a lot of place names. I think this makes a point in a different way that is quite impressive. Hand written note on a wreath from Prince Harry put there on Anzac Day. We walked up Piccadilly (named from the fashionable collars of the 18th century) to Bond Street and walked the length of Bond Street. 45 years ago this street had a lot of clothes shops. It still has some very exclusive brand names for clothes - YSL - etc - but its mostly Jewelry Shops now. Loads of French and Italians buying up everything. Sothebys was closed. Could not find Christies. But we did have the good luck of finding The Halcyon Gallery. This was having a sale of Warhol Prints. Some Campbells Soup Cans. Some Chairman Mao's. Only some had price tags. Nearly all POA. Those that did have price tags were pretty hefty. The majority had the red sticker attached. A very interesting video extolling Warhol's gifts running constantly. Here was a man who did not pretend to be smart - quite the opposite - yet he was able to change public taste. And he made Modern Art glamorous. Pretty well impossible to walk along Oxford Street so we took the Tube Home. I watched a show about Indian Sloth Bears then went to sleep early. Indian Sloth Bears are the most angelic creatures. Jenny watched a show about Elvis Presley. Timothy West and Prunella Scales were doing the canals of Sweden. Prunella says that if it wasn't for her husband she wouldn't even go outside even to put the milk bottles out. Woke up at 6.15. Overcast skies. But not heavy rain clouds. Blood Pressure 108/77 Pulse 92 We are going to have lunch with Shelly Williams. We first went to Finchley Road- Sainsburys - to buy Bill Brysons new book. Its advertised in all the newspapers and on some tube stations. Beggar outside the tube. Woman in her late 20's - possibly muslim but no head scarf. Sitting on the pavement. Surprisingly not an unattractive woman. Looked you in the eye. Smiled but not the normal beggars middle eastern smile. I wanted to ask her why she was begging - but didnt. I gave her some change. She said thank you. There are constant announcements on the trains that tissue beggars are operating and we are told to ignore them. What happens is a woman comes and places a small packet of tissues on the seat next to you and goes on to the next carriage. She then returns and asks if you would like to give a donation for the tissues - or she goes and stands at one end of the carriage with her palm out in a begging attitude waiting for people to respond. I think that's what she asked because the one I encountered did not speak a word of English. I went and handed the tissues back and also gave her some money. I told her I was happy to give her some money and I didnt want tissues. She didnt know what I was saying and pressed the small packet of tissues back on me. She was an innocent girl in her early 20's maybe - maybe older. Thick heavy body. Not very attractive. Just bewildered I think. And trying to do her job getting some money. They cannot get much. No beggar is making a fortune. Looking at the begging cups there is never much money in them. Only small coins. There are so many small coins in English currency and none of them are worth much. Never see a note in a begging cup or Buskers Hat. Could not tell where she came from. Despite all of Ukips and Brexits claims I would say there are a lot of people in this country who do not have any access to social security. What are they to do? We then went to the Bank Of England Museum to take photo's of things we had neglected to photograph when we last went. Handels statement. Kenneth Grahame's letter of resignation. The act of Parliament Nationalising the Bank. The outraged headline highlighting it on the front page of The Daily Telegraph. We met Shelley at Shoreditch station. We took the bus from Threadneedle Street. We walked to Brick Lane and walked down the length of it sometimes taking diversions into side streets. Checking out the street food. We still had not decided when we were confronted by a spruiker outside a restaurant extolling what we could get inside. I made an executive decision and said yes. When we got inside we found we were the only customers. He was offering 3 courses but no naan. But we wanted naan as well. We compromised and said we would pay extra. This is how they make their restaurant pay. By charging big money for naan. We were lucky to be inside. It started to rain pretty well as soon as we sat down. Then it hailed. But the food came and it was OK. Shelley said he was ravenous. He did not get home until after 2 last night and had drank too much beer. We were in the restaurant for over an hour I would think. Shelley had to go home to have a sleep. As we were eating various other tourists came in. No Bangladeshi's though. The spruiker was having some success. We walked along Brick Lane the opposite way to last time. We discovered that our restaurant was not the only place with a spruiker. There were many more Bangladeshi men in evidence than last time we walked through. These men are lucky. They are all about my age. They can come to London and live in a wonderful city. With ease it seems. And they have a community to help them. They are all dressed in their native gear. Not many woman are evident. All men wear prayer caps. Flowing trousers. Sometimes the clerical looking gown. I did see one man such dressed man smoking. How is this? Smoking is banned in Islam. Anyway the place was heavily populated with Bangladeshi men. Some in groups. Talking. Some sheltering from the rain. They all seem to wear the same footwear. As well as everything else. They are all dressed the same but why do they wear the same footwear? They all have some kind of beard. Not all have the full beard. But I suppose they comply with the rules by having a semblance of a beard. Brick Lane and the Whitechapel, Stepney Green area are a bit like what Earls Court was 45 years ago. If I came to live in London I would try and live in this general East End area. Shelley lives in Stoke Newington. A bit further out but still quite acceptable. We took the tube to Westminster. Its always spectacular to walk out and confront Big Ben. We wanted to walk to Piccadilly Circus and then along Piccadilly to No 1 London. But it was raining and sleeting. So we went to Baker Street by tube and had a cup of tea in a Pret. I had two cups of tea and a short snooze. We were home by 6.30. I purchased a bottle of French wine. Its not cheap and its not real good. I do think Australian Wine is better. We watched a documentary on The Dave Clark 5. Dave Clark was lucky in a way but also smart. He planned it all. He was careful. He used all 100% of his talent which wasn't much. But he was very astute business wise. He owned all his copyrights. He owned the master-tapes. He got paid 4 times more on each record than the Beatles were paid. He was the manager of the group. He was his own manager. He bought the rights and tapes of Ready Steady Go. He controlled all his contracts. He didnt sign up with anyone and subsequently did not have trouble like The Beatles, Stones and others had with money later on. Paul McCartney and Elton John were interviewed complaining about their predicament and how unfair it was that Dave Clark came out of the 60's unscathed by management and not them. Neither of them own their songs. You have to say that Dave Clark has not aged that well. His face looks like it is melting. Blood Pressure 135/72 Pulse 74 Woke up at 6.30. Clear blue skies. Blood Pressure 123/67 Pulse 61. Today we are going to Kew Gardens. Why don't they call it Queue Gardens? We will find out today. We changed to the Jubilee Line at Wembley Park and then changed again at West Hamstead and went all the way to Richmond. I wanted to go there because I went there 45 years ago a few times. I was there the saturday morning that Abbey Road was released. I listened to it in a newsagent that had the radio on. Kenny Everett was most respectful. No silly talk at all. And I agreed with him. These guys are geniuses is what he said. He just played the whole album. And I stayed and listened intently. As I remember it Richmond was a small village near a large park with deer in it. Its not like that now. It makes me think I must have been somewhere else. Its the same with Kew Gardens. I went there a few times when I lived here. I even took others there to show them. It looks different now. The only thing I remember is the Chinese Pagoda. I feel there were more ponds. One day I was there all ponds were half frozen. I mean half frozen. Half of each pond was ice and the other half was water. Ice all around the edges and halfway to the centre where it was unfrozen water. Birds were standing on the ice rather than swimming. I took bread to feed them. Not allowed now I would think. It was a cold day in the middle of winter last time. Today was mid spring. New leaves on trees. Very attractive. I do remember the hot houses of course. Apart from that nothing. I feel there were less trees as well. But I read that 1000 trees were knocked over or damaged in the tornado of 1987 so maybe I am wrong about that also. We went up the tree walk. You get the lift up and walk down. Its so high not everyone braved it. This is new. Its quite high. You have to have a sense of heights to endure it. The walkway is patterned metal you can see through as you walk over it. I do not recall the number of planes going over either. One every 2 minutes now I would say. All on the same flight-path to Heathrow. Is this the only flight-path? Do planes come in from a different direction.? Just how many planes land a Heathrow each day? Sydney has nothing to complain about. Not that it would worry me living under the flight-path. I would like it. We walked the full circle of the Park. Queen Anne's House. The Badger Set. Are there badgers there or have they culled them in their enthusiasm to cater to the farmers prejudices about TB in cows? Took lots of photo's of the lily pond inside the hothouse. They should have wading birds in there. They have fish. Why not birds? Only one Eucalyptus in the whole garden as far as we could see. We inspected closely the palm House. Some palms from Queensland. One Macadamia tree. Gives us some confidence about our Macadamia's. A constant spurt of fog coming from fog machines in the Palm House. It fogs up your glasses immediately you enter. We left the gardens and walked back to the shops near the station for lunch. The prices in cafe's inside public places are horrendous. Double outside. I had steak and kidney pie and Jenny had a pastie. Neither were like what we get in Australia. Jenny's pastie was mostly meat and my pie did not have much kidney in it. It did not have that four n twenty taste that all pies emulate in Australia. But both pie and pastie were excellent. Home made. The type that make you want to go back and buy more. Our tickets allowed you to leave the gardens and return. We both took photo's of Canadian Geese. Or what we think might be Canadian Geese. They have a very attractive voice and talk back when you get close and talk to them. I also took several photo's of a male Peacock displaying. Really giving a show. We will have to get a pair. All in all we did a fair bit of walking. There was a vehicle giving tours but again it was 6 pounds. If it was 2 we might have considered it. It shows how wealthy the British have become. Or to be more precise maybe the rest of Europe because most of the visitors in the park were Europeans. Japanese and Chinese as well. There were some English as well - gardening types. They don't seem to mind forking out money for overpriced things. The cafe was well patronised. There are three in the park. We were in the least expensive one. I don't recall one being here 45 years ago. We did see one of the Parks special Constables riding his bike. The Park has its own Police Force. I watched a little of Russel Crows Robin Hood on TV. It was probably better than what the critics said. He is a good actor but his accent was intriguing. I remember hearing him interviewed when he was asked quite innocently why he gave Robin Hood an Irish accent. The interview was terminated immediately. With extreme prejudice. No one questions Russel's acting ability. I think all the critics in England at least were against him from them on. Got up at 6.45. I only seem to go into refreshing sleep towards the end of the night and when I should be getting up. Clear blue skies but the weather forecast says not for long. Blood Pressure 109/63 Pulse 80 We went to Darwins House. Its called Down House. And its in Downe. He dropped the e when he moved to the house. We took the tube to Charing Cross and then the Southern Line to Orphington. Then the bus to Down House. Its well out in the country. Bus goes along very narrow roads. Even two cars cannot pass. One has to stop to let the other pass. Fortunately we never came across a car so we did not see what happens when a bus meets car. Darwin picked the house because it was so far out in the country (both he and his wife felt it was on the edge of the world) yet in reality it was only 20 miles from London. When we got to Orphington we had 10 minutes or so time to wait for the bus so we decided we would have a little walk. Half way through the walk the bus came -fast. We had to do 200 metres in double quick time. We did run all the way. Nothing like it to tone up the heart. As it was the bus driver backed into a bus station and had his lunch. We did not have to run. He kept to the timetable. I didnt think I would have so much trouble running 200 metres. Darwin came from a wealthy family and his wife was wealthy also. They shared the same Grandfather - Joshua Wedgewood. They added to the house with each succeeding child. They were a happy family but Mrs Darwin had grave doubts about her husbands beliefs. She remained a devout Christian. He did his Beagle Tour before he got married. He paid for it himself. Or his father paid for it. His father was initially skeptical about his son going off on this expensive folly but he said he would finance him if he (Darwin) could get one other respectable man to talk to him (the father) and convince him the trip was worthwhile then he would give his approval. Darwin got his uncle to vouch for him. This wasn't hard. The trip wasn't a frivolous desire on Darwin's part. He already had a reputation as a respected amateur botanist. There were many who would have vouched for him but his Uncle was family and his father couldn't ignore him. Its just that his father had originally wanted him to study medicine and when Darwin dropped out of this his father wanted him to go into the church. He came to Australia on his Beagle Voyage. He went to the top of Mount Wellington. How did he do it without riding in a car? I couldn't. The house is full of good stuff. Its really fantastic. Darwin puts everything in perspective and makes it understandable. He simplified matters. There are lots of notebooks. Paraphernalia. Photo's. Extracts showing Family life. Account books. Household expense books. Details of experiments. The layout of the house has been recreated from photographs. All of the furniture is authentic. This is the room where Darwin wrote the Origin of the Species. This is the very desk and the very pen. There is a reproduction of his cabin on the Beagle where he collated all his specimens. And where two others also slept. Three slung hammocks that were tied to one side during the day. He was an interesting character. He didnt have to work yet he was industrious. He worked hard. He wasn't a healthy man as well. He had some unknown illness for all his adult life. He kept copious notes about it. He treated it by having cold showers after walking 4 miles every morning. There has been much speculation about what it was - its thought that he was bitten by a bug in the tropics and had a disease called Quags Disease. Or some name similar. He certainly had a passion for collating information and finding a pattern. He collected lists. He kept notes and later on wrote them up at length. He studied odd things to the nth degree. He drew conclusions. For instance on barnacles. For instance on worms. He made thousands of experiments on things that grew naturally in the garden. For instance - how do plants reproduce. Do they select their sexual partners? Well Yes. By encouraging the right type of insect to collect pollen. He studied everything. Do bees deliberately construct their hives in a certain way. Well yes. Change the circumstances and the bees will change their hives. He even weighed every visitor when they came to the house buts its not known if he drew any conclusions from the records he so carefully kept. You can read the names and weights in the weight book. Before Darwin the prevailing thought was that the earth and all its creatures were created by God. After him no one thought this way. We had a bit of a hitch getting back to Orphington. We were told the bus came every 10 minutes. It was in fact every one and a half hours. We spent over an hour in the village of Downe. Two pubs. One church. About 50 or 100 hundred houses. Hard to say. Some pretty swank. Some quite small and attached - some triple attached. I spent the time reading the Times and studying the locals. Quite a wealthy place judging by the cars in the streets. I figure that everyone who lives in the Village must have to have an income of over 50000 pounds just to exist. Maybe slightly less than that but you would need a fair amount of cash to live here. Woman opposite the bus stop had a handy man doing various things - moving flower boxes - re arranging stones in her front porch - chatting all the time. There were two men doing restoration work on the church but they packed up and moved on after a short while. Their truck was expensive so they must charge a lot for their work. Three people having a committee meeting in one of the Pubs. The sun was shining as I sat and read. It was not unpleasant waiting for the bus. As it turned out the bus was broken down and they had to send a replacement and that is why we had to wait for so long. Did not get home until 7.30. Watched a show about The Romans on TV by Mary Beard. When this woman first appeared on TV a critic wrote that they should not let such ugly women on TV. Look at her clothes - they are horrible - where did she get her fashion sense? Look at her hair - its long and grey - why doesn't she cut and dye it? He actually said this. Really nasty stuff that you cannot reply to. I think she's fantastic. We should have more people like her on TV. Blood Pressure 129/69 Pulse 69 Got up at 6.40. A bit better but still not early enough. Clear sunny skies.
Blood Pressure 129/74 Pulse 60 Still reading the Sunday Papers and supplements. A kind of gushing article about Anna Wintour (nicknamed Nuclear Winter by staff) who is the person the film The Devil Wears Prada portrays. Dont know how old she is -about 45 - 50. Maybe more. Skinny. Bones sticking out skinny. Scraped and sculptured. Lots of naked flesh. No bra. Must have had cosmetic surgery at some stage. Who said this woman was good looking? She obviously thinks so but why do others have to agree with her? Why do we take her seriously? When we stop kowtowing to these people they will lose their power. I spend too much time each day writing this blog. I get trapped on it. We took the opportunity to go to Brick Lane. We walked from Aldgate Station to Whitechapel Gallery. Cold wind with clouds overhead. The Whitechapel Gallery shows installation Art. Special Electronic Art exhibition on at the moment - but as you had to pay we gave it a miss. Looking through a window was enough for me. Lots of bright young students walking around - they must attend the attached Art School. The shop has loads of books about Art. So much so it reminds you that you really know nothing about Art. What the Gallery did show was a Documentary Film about an Egyptian Photographer. A young film maker from Paris found a series of photo's of his Grandmother hidden amongst his mothers effects. They were taken by a Professional Photographer in Cairo. The photo's were of his grandmother in various stages of undress until she was naked except for a strategically placed balloon. The film maker took the first plane he could to Cairo to find out how this could be. The photographer was still alive. He must have been in his late 80's. He was still practicing at the same address. His gear was as old as he was, He kept immaculate records and he still had the negatives. He remembered the woman. She was much older than he was. He was very young and she was in her late thirties. Apparently she just wanted to have herself photographed naked. The 12 photo's were both innocent and provocative. She was wearing provocative underwear - well provocative for me - and it was basically a strip show. Most of the photo's were her in underwear. Only one fully clothed. Started lifting her skirts and then continued on. She didnt explain to the photographer why she wanted them. She only said she wanted to be photographed naked. The last photo was of her naked with a balloon covering her intimate parts. The film was essentially an interview with the photographer. He did speak English but as he was so old he tended to speak for a while in English then speak for a while in Arabic. There were some shots of Cairo around where he lived and had his studio. Very heavily built up. Solid buildings 4 or 5 stories tall. No obvious building regulations. Every building different. All coloured a dark brown. Very narrow alleyways. No roads. It was a very claustrophobic place. Apparently all Cairo is like this. The film maker wanted to ask if there was any romance between the photographer and his grandmother but he was afraid to ask. The Film Maker was suspicious because the photographer had added by hand his phone number on the back of one photo next to his stamp. All the photographer would say was that it was a normal a professional job. He showed us other women he had photographed. Nothing provocative though. He was essentially a portrait photographer. Mostly black and white but some women in colour. Film stars from the 60's. So nothing was resolved. His grandmother had migrated to France and was always a respectable woman. The matriarch of the family. But she had obviously deliberately kept these photo's. Her daughter knew of their existence and had kept them secret also. And she had not destroyed them. The Film Maker found them after his mother died and he was going through her effects. What was their significance? They are now part of an Artistic Installation that is attached to the Documentary Film whenever it is shown. The documentary had a soundtrack of what I presumed was Egyptian Popular music. It was interesting. It sounded different to other middle eastern music I have heard. I liked it. Of course when we came out of the Whitechapel Gallery I took the wrong turning and headed away from Brick Lane. But we had some good luck because I came across an Indian Takeaway. Small place. Very ambitious man behind the counter. Food was OK. Lots of it. We will go back again if possible. The man behind the counter directed us to where Brick Lane was and we walked the length of it. Lots of small shops. Some very small shops. Some selling fabrics. Some selling female African clothing. But a great variation of shops. Possibly Pakistani. Possibly Bangladeshi. Possibly Middle Eastern. Hard to tell from the outside but all those groups get gurnseys. We had a cup of tea in a place called Vintage. An unusually large clothing shop for the area. Dealing in Vintage Clothes. I don't think one employee was English. All Europeans. Joke in The Times today. A Minister in the current government who is in the Brexit Camp says we don't need to break away from the EEU. All we need to do is make a separate agreement with Albania, Rumania, Russia, Serbia, Bosnia, Poland, The Ukraine and Slovakia. Nothing would change. He is making reference to the fact that all cleaners, sweepers, waiters, hotel workers, hospitality workers, porters, security men, garbage men etc in London come from these countries. If the get out of Europe forces win and they send them all home there will be great changes in London. It is the stated aim of Ukip to do this. I have noticed that in the important industries such as all new building construction or the new Crossrail the workers are all English. Both Black and White. There is no race discrimination but there are no foreigners employed. Same with Bus Drivers. Tube employees. Inner city building renovations. They are all definitely English. But I don't believe there is a English person behind a food counter in all of London. In Preston Road there is an English Jewish Woman with a cake shop - its good - but all other shops are pretty well all Polish or Afghan. Not one English Sales assistant. England seems to have accepted Black people into their consciousness. They now have trouble with Eastern Europeans. Eastern Europeans (and Middle Eastern Muslims) are what they will vote against in the referendum. They want to send them all home. Not much different to Australians. Stop them before they get here is the slogan. There is no doubting that a lot of Eastern Europeans have taken advantage of the total access availability and have come to London to work. I would say double the published number. Have they lowered the wage rates? I don't know. I think maybe not. Maybe in house cleaning they may have. All house cleaners seem to be Russians. The problem is no one wants to reciprocate and go to their countries. Certainly no English. Although surprisingly there are over a million British now live in France. Hard to believe. When walking along Brick Lane it almost snowed. Flurries of sleet blown by wind. It did turn cold but it was not uncomfortable. Rain was very fine drizzle that was being frozen in the wind. As we had our cup of tea we watched for snow to happen but unfortunately it didnt. It snowed in various places - mostly up north and in Scotland of course. After that we walked to The Guild Hall and did another tour. Different tour guide so we saw and heard about different things. Its possibly the best value for money in all the museums in London. We purchased the drawing of London bringing up to date the 1616 drawing. Its the same drawing in 2016 from the same perspective. . We will have to work out what the Shakespearean references are in it. There are 16 in total. We have been told 2. We watched an interesting history of Trams in England on TV. Going back to horse drawn and then showing each stage forward. They had their day and then they became redundant. But they also became unfashionable. They were dispensed with all over Britain and were replaced with buses. Finally there was only one Tram left in Blackpool. Blood Pressure 133/68 Pulse 71 Woke up at 6AM and wasted one and a half hours continually flicking through all 150 channels. I watched all the teleshopping channels. Nothing on but a weird black and white cold war film from Hollywood where the Communists were infiltrating the New York Docks. And were they bad guys. Real baddies. Awful crude film. Didnt watch it for long. Continued on flicking though. The Russian Channel was the only thing worth watching.
Blood Pressure 109/62 Pulse 64 Before we left Australia Jenny purchased a ticket online from English Heritage. They are much the same as The National Trust but not as big and seem to have lesser numbers but bigger buildings. Kenwood House where we went last week is one of their houses. Today we took advantage of the voucher and went to Eltham Palace. Its pronounced Elt - Ham. You don't pronounce the th. We will have to stop calling Eltham Eltham and start calling it Elt Ham. We took the Jubilee Line to North Greenwich. We then got the bus to Eltham. Quite a long journey. Through a number of suburbs. Eltham has quite a large shopping area but it retains something of a country village look. Mixture of types. A fair proportion of non Caucasian. We then had to walk to Eltham Palace. This was quite interesting. Very quickly we passed from village look to extremely well healed outer suburbia. Very attractive houses on large blocks. Something like Toorak. Eltham Palace has a history of 1000 years. It was first built in William the Conquerors time. It came into the Royal Family at some point and Henry V111 spent most of his life there up to the time he became King. After that he wanted a more grander and better located home so he moved to Hampton Park and never went back there. It fell into disrepair and was badly damaged during the Civil War when the Parliamentarians damaged it. As they did everywhere according to the rather unkind comments on the time line showing the history of the house. It even became a storage place for farm produce - hay etc after the restoration. Finally in the early 20th Century it was purchased by the Courtauld Family. We had lunch in the cafe. I had soup and Jenny had fish tart. When the food came Jenny felt the food had chicken in it and it was a pie not a tart. She went and told them and they provided her with what she was supposed to have. Because she had already tasted the pie I was able to have it for free. It was OK but not brilliant. They restored the Original Hall to its proper state. It is smaller than Westminster but has the same look. No doubt its authentic. They then built a large house attached to the Great Hall with the outside in the style of what it was previously. The interest in the house is that inside it is all Art Deco. There could not be a bigger difference between outside and inside. And I mean all Art Deco. Not a lot of rooms inside the shell but the rooms are all large. And they are all in the Art Deco style. Its a very comfortable and interesting house. It has all the modern amenities. Well before its time. Internal vacuum cleaning system for instance. Underfloor heating. Bathrooms attached to every bedroom. Large working kitchen attached to the dining Room. Large refrigeration area. In the basement there is a Billiard room and a Dark room because they were both keen photographers. But basically it is a 2 bedroom house with another 2 small bedrooms for visitors. There is a room in the basement where they accommodated important people during the war. This has been made up to look what it was like then. Camp stretchers etc. There are letters from grateful participants. Aparently it was quiet and people could concentrate on what they were doing. And of course everything was laid on because they produced all their own food. It is still more or less a working farm. There was not a large servants area as far as I could see. Maybe they came from the village. Of course the Courtaulds had servants. There is references to Mrs Courtauld writing notes to the cook suggesting some adjustments required to the cooking. They had a butler and valets etc. Cleaners etc. But apparently not footmen and housemaids etc. Where their quarters were is not obvious. Plenty of rooms for food preparation and other work. Maybe they stayed there. On the job. Walking back to the town to get the bus it started to rain. Jenny made the decision that we should keep walking and of course two buses went past when were were between bus stops. A lot of people were waiting when we finally got to our bus stop. The trip back to North Greenwich was eventful in that the bus was full for pretty well all the way. There was a heavy fall of rain. Hailstones even at one point. A woman with two children sitting in front of us - one well behaved and one well and truly not well behaved. Woman had the unattractive east end accent. Why do the English persist with accents? It stamps them at birth with a whole personality and way of life. A lot of non caucasian schoolchildren on the bus. Pretty well all non caucasian boys and girls. A lot of chatter. They go to school a fair way from home because they were on the bus for a fair stretch. Jenny wondered why there was not a suitable school closer to home. We passed through a mixture of industrial and domestic buildings. Some could almost be historic. No new development until you get near to Greenwich and then it happens with a vengeance. We came home on the Jubilee Line. Slept in until 8.30. We are having brunch with Tosan's family this morning at 10 O'Clock. Will not have any breakfast beforehand.
Blood Pressure 126/76 Pulse 64 We went down at 10 O'clock. Tosan's sister Beram is here from Paris for the weekend. Came on the Eurostar. Had a long talk with her. She's going back Monday morning leaving at 8 and will be at work by 10 past 10. At one time she worked for Lend Lease. She likes to work for a few years and then spent 4-6 months traveling. She is currently living and working in Paris. She has been there 4 years but does not feel French in any way. She has learned to speak French but will not stay when this current job finishes. They laid on a good breakfast. Scrambled eggs with fish slices. Sausages. Bacon. Fried Eggs. Fried mushrooms. Baked beans. Tea and Coffee. Good Coffee. I think that Tosan despite calling himself Nigerian is a true Englishman. The couple staying in the other flat in the house are Canadian. Bob and Trish from Vancouver. Our age. Here for a month. He retired on friday and they left for London on monday. Best way to do it. When Tosan and Beram asked what I might do today I said that I wanted to go to the Highgate Cemetery and look at Karl Marx's tomb. They both claimed to have never heard of him. Can this be true? Has Marx completely disappeared from University study? I didnt pursue it. Anyway we got talking about where we should go and everybody said we should have a look at Wembley Stadium. We walked there. Its quite close. We are within the exclusion zone as far as parking around Wembley goes. All cars have to have a special permit. Warning signs everywhere. There was an FA Cup Semi Final on - Crystal Palace versus Watford. I walked right around Wembley Stadium in 1970. It was an old wooden building in a run down area. Surrounded by houses. It wasn't very big. And it was quite close to houses. It was one side of the street and houses were the other side of the street. Not anymore. It has been completely transformed. Again the AFL could learn something from what has happened. The whole area surrounding the arena must have been flattened and raised. Enormous International Hotels now surround the ground. The arena is 4 or 5 times larger than in 1970. About the size of the MCG. I believe the Australian company who re developed it nearly went broke. No profit in it at all. A large shopping mall is attached to the whole complex. One of those super Outlets. Bjorn Borg has a sports shop there. I couldn't see him inside. A new train station to cater for the arena. A carpark under the building. 60 Pounds to park on match days. Great crowds of people. Crystal Palace one side and Watford the other. Supporters are kept separate although there was some mingling. Some differences between Australia and UK. In Australia the people go to the ground without any fanfare - they are hurrying to get to their seats. Here there is a lot of forced camaraderie - people cheering and chanting as they walk along - large groups of people waiting around for what I don't know. A lot spend at least two hours in the pub before the game. All the pubs are crowded. They do this to a certain extent in Melbourne but nothing like here. The pubs at the ground are enormous. Not as many woman around as in Australia. Hardly 5% women here. No women by themselves. But a few couples our age. Some men standing still quietly calling out asking for spare tickets. It must be illegal to solicit tickets. The match was sold out. Lots of people standing on walkways attached to the outside of the arena. Maybe they were waiting for the game to start before they went in. Lots of Police everywhere. Ten more times than in Melbourne. Maybe more than 10 times more. Not only Police but also private security men. Every doorway seemed to have a security man. When we had had enough we came home by train. Its only one stop. Crystal Palace won. The reason why the game was so popular was because it was a London Derby. Two London teams. Woke up at 6.30. Blue skies with clouds.
Blood Pressure 106/70 Pulse 91 We decided to go to Wimbledon and to take the Tram to Croydon. We had to change at Earls Court so I took the opportunity to revisit where I used to live. After 45 years my memory is not precise. This is odd because I used to love living in Earls Court. I loved it so much I should remember everything precisely. Its taken as a joke that I lived in Earls Court. Such a stereotypical place. Yet I did not know one other Australian who lived there. Not that I would have spoken to them anyway. I didnt want to speak to Australians. I thought I would be living in England for the rest of my life. Earls Court was exciting. There was always something happening. There were always buskers in the station foyer. There were always eccentric people outside Earls Court Station. Weirdly dressed people. There were always people handing out flyers in the street. There were always people just standing around looking at other people walking by. And it must be said sometimes finding humour in the situation. Laughing out loud that is. Transvestites came to the Wimpy Bar on friday nights. When walking to Eardley Crescent from the station I would hear someone practicing his drums in one of the basement flats. He was so broke that he had to play along to whatever was on the radio. He did not have a record player. He had to rely on what was currently on the wireless. Opposite him was an Italian Soup Kitchen in the basement. No table clothes on the wooden tables. I only ate there once but the Minestrone was fantastic. There were always signs up everywhere advertising jobs. After I moved to Earls Court Square - 33B - I lived with a car mechanic and three girls - we didnt have television. But I could always go and watch whatever I wanted to see in the Pub. The last tenant had left a very large telephone bill in his name but attached to our address and the girls said because of this we couldn't hire a TV. Or get the phone on. Earls Court was on 3 lines. Piccadilly, District and Circle line. It was easy to get to. In planning my return to London I thought for pleasure I would just sit on the train for 3 circles of the Circle Line. Its not possible now. They have taken Earls Court off the Circle line. And the Circle Line is not complete. I cannot remember a school being in the Square of Earls Court Square. There is one there now. I don't recall which route I took from the station to get home. Earls Court Road seemed to be much wider then than it is now. There were a lot of very good Indian Restaurants in the streets off Earls Court Road. I was taken to eat by an acquaintance who was a salesman. He had a Credit Card - the first I had seen - and he paid for the 6 of us who tagged along with his Credit Card. It made me think that Salesmen had immense power. I remember the food was exceptional also. There is not one Indian Restaurant in Earls Court now. Well not one that I would eat at. Not one down a cellar in a small room that caters for poor people. We had french fries in MacDonald's because we needed to use the toilet. We spoke to French Student studying Medicine in London who sat next to us. Very personable. Said he felt slightly guilty because his parents paid for him to come to London to study. And he also had some kind of student loan he would have to pay back. He has been in London for 3 years. Didn't speak English before he came here. He originally came from The Cameroons. Spoke excellent English. He likes London but is not really integrated into England. He will return to France when he is qualified. He is definitely on the side of the striking junior doctors. One of the girls I lived with in Earl's Court Square was Welsh. She had a degree in something and worked as a PA to an executive. She was a nice girl. Heart of gold. Not classically beautiful. But quite impressive looking. Not a fashionable dresser. No short skirts. No elaborate hairstyles. Very little makeup. A sensible, respectable well behaved girl. She had a boyfriend - Eddie - who she spoke about constantly. Eddie was married and had two children. I would say that Eddie was in his mid to late 30's. She would have been 21 or 22. She would tell you Eddies history. Children's names. Where he lived. Where he worked. She didnt see him very often. She could only see him when he could organise it. He would turn up sometimes when he only had minutes to spare for her. He would sometimes come for an hour and they would socialise with the rest of us as if there was nothing abnormal. Sometimes he came for all of saturday afternoon. He would just walk in and sit down and continue on talking to the rest of us from where we left off last time. They would sit holding hands and stroking each other. In fond embrace. He was a very sociable guy. Together they would casually talk about his wife and children. He was a nice guy. I liked him. She lived for Eddie. It was Eddie this and Eddie that when you talked to her. We had a party one night and Eddie turned up unexpectedly. We did not have the phone on so he couldn't warn her he was coming. She was ecstatic. She could show her Eddie off to everyone. And she did. Proudly. When he did turn up they never adjourned into her room (which she shared with the other 2 girls) for sex as far as I recall. The way she spoke I knew she loved him and would have done anything for him. But I cannot recall them ever organising themselves into an intimate position. Very, very occasionally he would take her out to dinner at a restaurant. And drop her off with a passionate kiss afterwards. She did say once that they had been away to Wales for a weekend together 18 months ago. She never expressed any dissatisfaction with her circumstances. Never. She only gave the impression she was happy. My distinct memory is watching the three girls all getting their breakfasts in the small kitchen at the end of the hall most mornings. It was always cold and dark with only one small bulb illuminating the scene. All the girls silent but cooperating. I often thought it would make a good photo but I didnt dare to ask. I didnt have breakfast. My bedroom was at the end of the hall at the other end of the flat. We had a long basement flat. When we had heavy rain we sometimes had to put down boards for the girls to walk on because water seeped into the floor in the kitchen area. We took the District Line from West Brompton to Wimbledon. My local pub is still boarded up. West Brompton was only on the above ground system 45 years ago. It wasn't a tube station. It was not a much used station. But it had its own Station Master. Now its on the District Line. The line goes over the Thames at Putney. When James was in London he stayed in East Putney. We can tell him we have been to where he lived. We got off at Wimbledon. Had a good look around. There is a large shopping area under cover. The population reminded us of the demographic around Knox City. Not as many people from Asia but much the same economic strata. Not many black faces. Not many head scarves. Not as varied as Preston Road is. I think we like Preston Road better. Jenny had a sausage roll from a supermarket and I was persuaded to try something that was claiming to be Jamaican Jerky Chicken from the same supermarket. It wasn't. It tasted like burnt overcooked chicken. I have yet to eat something that is genuinely Jamaican. Shelley Williams promised to take us to a suburb that is teeming with Jamaicans but I feel he is going to let us down. The Wimbeldon live theatre that used to be art based in 1970 is now showing tourist inspired productions. Its the same with all the theatres. Only a few have any avant guarde productions. We took the new Tram from Wimbledon to Croydon. The name is a bit misleading as for the majority of the time it is like the St Kilda light rail. But for part of the way - through Croydon - it is on the road. Competes with cars. Quite a good nought to twenty take off speed. Not much in Croydon of interest. Large buildings. Enormous recent development. About as much to interest us as Croydon in Melbourne. I wanted to keep the faith and go to South London. We did a bit of a cooks tour across South London. It had a few interesting viewing spots but it was mostly similar to North London. When I lived here I never went into South London except when I was taken in a car or had to visit someone. It was a foreign country. There is a running joke about the north south divide. Not the northern and southern hemispheres but the divide between north and south London and never the twain shall meet. In real life it is a bit like this. There is some truth in the myth. But we have done our duty and been to South London. I got a chicken Wasabi Curry on the way home. I asked for the wrong one because I didnt know exactly what I wanted. You have to ask rather than point. But apart from that it was OK. Jenny had leftovers. There are no genuine Indian Takeaways anywhere. Absolutely nothing on TV. Got up at 6.45. Overcast Day.
Blood Pressure 116/72. Pulse 61 Watched a few minutes of an old Black and White thriller on TV. They show one every morning. We then watched Minder. The last series they made without Terry. Nephew Ray is Arthur's minder . Not Terry. Prince has died. I acknowledge his talent but did he have too much style. Did his talent equal his style? When did style cease and talent begin? Am I being too hard on the bloke? After all show business is show business. He certainly manipulated his image to perfection. The Apple Company when Steve Jobs was present had equal style and equal content. We had intended going to Eltham House but luckily we looked at the website at the last moment and found it was closed on Fridays and Saturdays. We them decided to take Steve's advice and walked along the Grand Canal from Limehouse to Islington. 45 years ago Limehouse was the epitome of the East End. We didnt get to Limehouse until after 1. And we discovered a genuine East End Greasy Joes Cafe. A classic holdover from the past. Small cafe run by an old woman and her children. She was so old they were probably her grandchildren. Concrete floor. Laminex tables. Metal Chairs very close together. The Daily Mirror and The Star the only papers for customers to read. Cafe was well patronised by genuine East Enders. Loud, brash, overbearing. Some swearing occurring in conversation. Women went outside to have a smoke. People looking at us as if to ask - why are you here? I had Curried meat and rice. Jenny had baked potato and salad. Mine was OK. Jenny's not so much. I enjoyed it. It was more than reminiscent of the past. It was equal to the past. We then walked from Limehouse to Islington Angel along the Regents Canal. Saw a few longboats going through locks. Had a short conversation with one of the participants. Man and wife own a longboat with several other couples. They take it in turn to use the boat. They were only going from Limehouse to Kings Cross today and this was taking them 3 hours. Its not a quick form of transport. Limehouse is the nearest to the city they can get. I helped a woman to swing the gate closed in another lock. Along the way we went into an East End Pub that they have left standing after demolishing all other buildings within at least 200 metres of it. It is sitting out in the open all by itself. Surrounded by bare land slowly turning into something of a park. Its called - The Palm Tree. It used to be surrounded by streets full of houses. It was at the end of the then streets next to the canal. Now its only next to the canal. Now people have to walk about 400 metres to get to it. There was only one other person in there when we went in. He was a dissafected East Ender who never wanted anything to be demolished. They have ruined the whole area. Enormous dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. All of the industry in the area has been taken away. Every warehouse has been knocked down. People from overseas come here and live off the tax paid by English people like him. Some kind of University has been set up over the other side of the canal. Who pays for them? Stupid people like us do - that's who! What do they do there? Students sitting around doing nothing. Etc. I told him that he didn't realise it but England was now a prosperous middle class country. This seemed to set him back a bit. I think he was a little shocked at such a preposterous statement. He will be voting to leave. Send them all back home etc. The landlord was a bit more balanced. Easy to talk to. Very good with the East End banter. He was surprised that Manchester City own Melbourne City Soccer Club. He thought only West Ham had scouts in Australia. He made Jenny a cup of tea. I had a full pint of English Ale. It was OK. Two yuppies came in when we were there. They both had a pint of Guinness. Still looks as unappetising now as it did in 1970. Classless accents on the two yuppies. May have been from the University. As we were leaving another East Ender came in. The landlord said business picks up at night. He has a small bandstand. Photo's of entertainers on the wall. No one that I knew. Some photo's looked a bit desperate. Typical East End entertainers from 1970. Some photo's may have been from that vintage. No drag acts though. East End had lots of drag acts in 1970. We walked for about 3 hours with the ambience of the place slowly getting more gentrified. Finally got to Islington Angel which is very gentrified. The canal goes into a tunnel at this point. You can see markers on the ground above showing showing the path the tunnel takes as you walk along over it. The Islington Angel tube station must go below the canal tunnel. Its a long way down to the platform. Got the Northern Line. Only time we have experienced very full trains. But trains came every 90 seconds. How good is that. We waited and got on the third train. Walked straight from the Northern Line to the Metropolitan line without waiting. Watched an interesting show on TV about The Everley Brothers. Very good extracts on film and details of life in Nashville. From what I can gather it was a country town something like Wangaratta but it had Recording studios and Publishing Companies and songwriters who lived there in houses they were paying off. Its true the brothers never got on. Don was a democrat and leftist. Phil was a Republican and a Reagan supporter. They didnt speak for 10 years towards the end of their life. They only gave the one concert at the Albert Hall during this time. Commentators pointed out the number of groups with brothers in them who didnt get on either. There are quite a few. Think about it. Woke up at 6.45AM. Mostly clear skies.
Blood Pressure 98/59 Pulse 73 We are visiting Steve and Mary in Etchingham. We made our way to Charing Cross. Had a few minutes to spare so we had a short walk around the Strand area. Got on our train with about 5 minutes to,spare. The train came in from Hastings and a lot of people got off. This was after 10 so it is unlikely if they were workers. Jenny thought that they looked as if they were up in London for the day. I wasn't sure. Not many people got on and we were shortly underway stopping at Waterloo East. Then on through a few stops including Tunbridge Wells ( as in outraged of Tunbridge Wells ) until we got to Etchingham. Steve met us at the train. Can I say that English Trains are of a higher standard than Australian Trains. Much higher. Its disappointing. Very smooth ride. Quite fast. I know that we have much larger distances to cover and have a much lesser population so we don't really want to confront the problem. Maybe we should admit defeat and do away with trains in Australia, Steve and Mary drove us around to give us a look at the place. We passed through Battle. I think that their actual address is Battle. The village is quite close. It looked very interesting. Just a small place. Steve and Mary live between villages in a house on a main road - well a main road for the area - about 3 metres wide - and they look out over farm land on the other side of the road to them. There are houses scattered along their road. They are not next to each other. The area is farm area. Sheep and crops. Steve has a schoolfreind who farms and Steve enjoys helping him out. Steve likes ploughing. And apparently does a lot of it. We went to Hastings and had a good look around. Quite a large place with the Old Town completely separate from the rest. We only looked at the Old Town. A bit like Warmington on Sea. Not many people present. Novelty Rock Emporium etc. Childrens dodgem cars etc. Very old fashioned merry go round. Old looking and empty choo choo train making its way around the seafront area. Lots of Electronic Games machines etc. Has a bit of a run down look to it. Pretty dodgy looking mini golf. It would have been exactly like this 100 years ago - except for the electronic games. Hardly any people about. The beach is a stone beach. The fishing fleet leaves from the beach. There is no wharf. The boats were all up on the beach. I don't know how they get them up to the beach except for maybe with the tide. There are a series of buildings near the boats are that look like Dinner Plain on Mt Hotham and these are used to dry the fish nets. They look modern but they are old buildings. And they are taking up what would be the most expensive real estate in town. Its odd. The town is cut into the cliff face. Tiny streets on many levels. The street follows the sea along the cliff wall for quite a way. The modern part of the town is over the other side of the hill. The rest of the town is surprisingly large. Looks like anywhere else really. The old fashioned boarding houses and bed and breakfasts that face the beach have been mostly purchased by out of towners and gentrified. A few small private hotels still open. Hardly any boarding houses left. A few large modern expensive looking hotels. This is indicative of Britain as a whole. It has changed. We took the Funicular Railway to the top of the cliff. We then walked to the top of the hill. A very good view from the top of the hill. The Hastings Beacon was being prepared for lighting tonight. We walked down through the various levels of the old town. Lots of little alleyways. Good views all the way down. We had lunch in a Pub. I had the full Monty. Bacon, Eggs, sausages, chips, fried onions and tomatoes and fried bread. A very small piece of lettuce and tomato for show. I kid you not. Jenny had spring vegetable soup. She didn't think it was vegetable soup when it arrived and asked the waitress if maybe they had her order wrong but she was assured it was spring vegetable soup. Steve had some baked beans and chips concoction. He has very specific dietary needs - in the Shane Wearne style. He will not eat anything with green or red in it. It has to have English in the name. He says his stomach cannot stand anything except bland pasta like food. Mary had Lasagna and salad. Steve picked the pub as he had eaten here before and said it was safe. Still it wasn't bad. The staff did try. All young English people. Not a black face anywhere. One interesting thing I have noticed on tube is the number of white girls in London who make themselves up to look dark skinned. I have seen girls I thought were Egyptian or middle eastern who have very elaborate hair and eye makeup but when you look at their hands they have white skin. I have seen girls who I thought had some Caribbean background - proper hair etc - slightly black skin - thick eyebrows - dressed all in black - crimson lipstick - but again when you look at their hands their skin is white. But not in Hastings. As our Afghan Phone dealer says the English still own the towns out of London - You have to go out of London to see English People. He actually said this. He was serious. Its not totally untrue. But of course all there are lots of types of English. The pub gave every appearance of being 400 years old but we learned later it was built in 1958. It was built entirely from wood salvaged from fishing boats and made to look old. Plaster and concrete mixed with local mud. They did a good job. Low ceilings. Creaky floors. Old wooden furniture. Very authentic looking. Maybe it was a bit Jerry built also to add to the authentic look. We drove back through Bexley. Now this was a different town. Very upmarket. No cheap tourist attractions here. Keeping a strict heritage look. I doubt if it ever had any tacky boarding houses. We passed Rudyard Kipling's house. National Trust owned and far too expensive to go into. In the thirties during the depression an eccentric local landowner helped the community out by spending money on what can only be described as bucket list tasks. He had one elaborate folly built, one large Egyptian like column and one reasonable sized pyramid built. Though not near as large as the real thing. The pyramid was to be his mausoleum and he is buried in it. Myth was he was buried sitting in a chair. But this turned out to be not true when another of his family wanted to be buried inside the mausoleum. We had a cup of tea at Steve and Mary's before catching the 6.18 back to Charing Cross. Seemed a quicker ride back but stopped at the same stations. Mary has been a long standing Liberal Democrat Candidate. The area is a strong Tory electorate. She did increase her vote with each subsequent election and if they had preferential voting she might have got in two elections ago. Of course the last election was a disaster. They are still reeling from it. I don't think they have had a proper post mortem even yet. Slept in till 7.00. Jenny is ill. Vomited during night. Clear blue skies again.
Blood Pressure 132/71 Pulse 64 Our cleaner turned up at 10,30 so we had to go out. Jenny still felt ill. On the way to Preston Road we met a Canadian Couple our age who are staying in one of the larger flats that are in the house we are staying in. We have the one roomed loft. They have the one bedroom flat. We might just knock on their door one night and invite ourselves in to see what we are missing. We first went to the Museum at the Bank of England. The Bank of England is a large triangle shaped building. It takes up all the area of the triangle and has main roads surrounding it. In the 19th Century a wall was built around the bank. It gives the appearance of a vault above ground. It is a grey undistinguished solid concrete building. But this is only the wall. There is a separate building inside. The wall only has two small doors. The one into the bank has very heavy security. The other door into the museum also has security. You have to pass your valuables through the usual scanner. The wall around the bank means you cannot see what goes on inside. They have rebuilt the bank twice inside the wall without the public being able to see what they were building. You can see the upper floors from a distance but this is all you can see. No one knows what it looks like unless you can get inside to see. The public cannot. Having said all that it is well worth visiting the museum. I recommend it to anyone. Lots of history. Lots of explanations about banking. Lots of explanations about economics. Lots of diagrams. Lots of historical photo's. Lots of previous pounds shillings and pence. Lots of old ledgers. Lots of historical bank statements. Handel was a customer and speculated in the South Sea Company. He sold out before the bubble burst. He put his profits into his current account. He also had an interest bearing account. It is stated that he was a good businessman. But then he also founded the Children's Foundling Home and he apparently convinced a number of wealthy men to also give money. And he made it fashionable for hip middle class women to visit the hospital on weekends. Amongst the memorabilia is the resignation letter of Kenneth Grahame. His handwriting was so good you can read and understand what he wrote. Also a typed explanation as to why he resigned by a work colleague. Also a written record of a medical examination of Grahame which you cannot decipher. He must have written The Wind in The Willows when he was an employee at the Bank. He was incidentally involved in one of the few attempted robberies at the bank. It is also noted that they cheated him on his superannuation payment. The hand written calculation proves it. There is an actual gold bar. They dare you to try and pick it up. You can but you cannot lift it very far. Its inside a plastic case and you have to put your hand in a hole to grasp it. You cannot take the gold bar out of its case. Not that you would get very far with it. You cannot believe its so heavy. The value of it today is 323,000 pounds. As per today's price of gold at the International gold exchange which shows by ticker tape that it is constantly changing. We then went and had lunch at one of the many Prets that inhabit the City. I had chicken and bean soup with a salad sandwich. Jenny had a sandwich and a cup of tea. When sitting eating lunch outside the Pret in the open air I could not help but muse about the lifestyle of the people who live in the apartments that surrounded the Pret. This is within walking distance of St Pauls and The Bank of England. There was a notice saying serviced apartments were available. It gave a mobile phone number. I am not tempted to ring the number. I might get sucked in. We then went to The Guild Hall to purchase our drawing of London but it was closed. Security everywhere. Helicopter overhead. Police everywhere. No explanation as to why it was closed. Nothing on TV tonight to explain. Very annoying as it means we have to come back next week, We then just walked about and it was most enjoyable. We found Bow Bells Church. Didn't hear the bells though. We found a new shopping mall that had a viewing garden on the 6th floor opposite St Paul's. Found it by accident. A bar in a roof garden. Very modern. Obviously not a lot of people know about it otherwise there would be more people taking advantage. Jenny did two Italian girls a favour and took their photo. She remarked at how other nationalities immediately pose when they have their photo taken. She says the Chinese do this too. The English are too reserved. These two Italian girls who did not speak English - surprise - immediately set up a pose when Jenny pointed the phone at them. No embarrassment whatever. We ambled about in the Cheapside area of the city - walking through alleyways and side streets. There is no grid system in the City of London. Lots of construction work going on. Tried to count the number of cranes in view - 25 were visible. We walked to Farrington Street. We passed through some old and slightly decrepit looking but nevertheless nice interesting areas. We commented that they were probably ready for restructuring. Then we came to the site for the new Crossrail Station and this more or less means the area will not be with us when we next visit. All will be changed to cater for Crossrail and the millions it will bring to the area. Millions in both money and people. We came home on the Metropolitan Line. Nothing much on TV. The Annual Caravaner of the Year Awards. I kid you not. Wednesday Night at The London Palladium. I kid you not. This show was on when I lived here. Absolute crap except for when Cindi Lauper sang Time After Time on her Appalachian Harp. When she stays simple she is wonderful. Michael Palins Around the World in 80 days repeated on The Travel Channel. He looked so young. Victoria Wood has died. This is one woman you had to admire. Some film showing how talented she was. She could sing and play piano as well. Blood Pressure 113/64 Pulse 100 Got up at 6.30. Mainly clear skies.
Blood Pressure 112/65 Pulse 60 Still reading The Sunday Observer We did not leave until 10.45. We first went to Kings Cross St Pancras to pick up our train tickets for Thursday. Luckily I had a modern iphone because I had made a mistake when writing my receipt number. But with the phone i could look up my emails and show the man the number. We then walked to the Horse Guards Parade. 45 years ago you could walk through the buildings from here to Downing Street. I did it often. Once saw Sean Connery coming out of 10 Downing Street. Once saw Roy Jenkins sitting at his desk sorting papers. There was a narrow street at the back of Number 10 and number 11 and you could look in their back yards and through the backyards into the houses. St James Park had a lot of people taking advantage of the good weather. We saw at least 2 unruly French School Groups. Teachers acting exactly the same as in Victoria. There are fences keeping people away from the lakes and there are signs saying not to feed any of the birds. I cannot recall either of these 45 years ago. Certainly I fed the birds at every opportunity. Immaculate English weather. Lots of good looking girls reclining on the grass. What great lives young women must have living in London. They all look so happy and fulfilled. We then went to the V and A by tube. We could have walked but we were saving our energy. The prices in the V and A cafe are quite high so we walked to Knightsbridge to a Pret. I had a sandwich and a soup. Jenny had soup and bread. We shared a tea. Pret does a good tea. We had a long walk through the building but did not see everything. I paid 9 pounds to go to the Undressed exhibition. It was overpriced. And not very good. Very chaste. Not a hint of erotica. Surprisingly 98% of the people looking were woman which surprised me. We then went to another special exhibition of Theatre which was much better. Lots of props and costumes. Dame Edna's Opera House Hat. Lots of memorabilia. We then discovered a large room of paintings. Constable and Turner. Easy to see that Constable tried to paint like Turner and was not very successful at it. He should have stuck with what he was good at. But it must have been almost impossible to not be influenced by Turner. Or ignore him. Even if you were Constable. The paintings here are good Turners and not so good Constables. In the Tate where there are a surfeit of Turners you can see that not all his paintings were of the same standard. Here there are only a few and they are all good. In the Tate the Constables are all good - Hay Wain etc. But they only have the best of Constable in the Tate. We then took the Piccabilly Line to Piccadilly Circus. We had tea in a genuine Chinese cafe in China Town. 45 years ago China Town was not here. Something like our own China Town in Little Lonsdale Street. But we managed to have a stroke of good luck. Very small simple place. The kitchen was in the restaurant itself. Extremely small kitchen. You could see the cook working. Steaming pots. Customers jam packed in. Not a wide selection. But fabulous food. And not too expensive. We then went to the Stage Production of Sunny afternoon in the Harold Pinter Theatre. I still have not got it in my head the direction of North South East or West. I keep getting turned around and this happened again last night. I swore I knew where the theatre was and insisted on going a certain way but of course we were walking the opposite direction to where were supposed to be going. But eventually we made it in time. Very small compact old theatre. Nearly full. The show was OK but I would not recommend it. I know the story because I am a fan of Ray Davies and I have some Kinks Albums. Not all the songs are used and there is new music linking scenes. They have been loose with the truth as well. But I have to say the acting was very impressive. About 20 in the cast and all of them excellent. Surprisingly so. Could not fault them. All the actors play instruments. Some a multiple of instruments. And play well. I could not see where it was ever fake or where they might have been miming. All could sing well. The plot centred on the tension between the two brothers and how their management exploited them. And the semi tragedy/semi comedy that was Ray Davies domestic life. The actor playing Dave Davies was the real star of the night. Very good guitar player and very good singer. The actor playing Ray Davies gave a very good impression of him and did sound like him. One odd thing was that there were surtitles of everything. Not only the lyrics of songs but every word of dialogue. Most of the audience were our age. The show finished at 10.30. Still a lot of people in the Leicester Square area. It was nice to be in the West end late at night. Well relatively late at night. We took the Bakerloo Line to Baker Street then the Metropolitan to Preston Road. Got up at 6AM. Another sunny day. I hate daylight saving wherever it is. It gets dark too late here. I like it when it gets dark about 5. Got up early because we have to be out of our little flat by 9AM to allow the cleaner in. Blood Pressure 105/72 Pulse 85 We took the train to Finchley Road and then the bus to Muswell Hill to find where I lived in 1969. It wasn't where I expected it to be but finally with the help of google we found it. The house looked smaller. But he person who lives there now assured me it was 27 Redston Road Muswell Hill N.8. The house no longer has a small porch at the front door. And they have opened up their loft. I thought the house was close to Muswell Hill bus station. But it was quite a walk from it. I know I had to walk a little way before I got the bus but not as far as we had to walk today. Still I did have more energy 45 years ago so it may not have seemed so far. Price of houses in Muswell Hill all over 500,000 pounds. Some over 1 million. I stayed in a boarding house. It stayed for a while until I was lucky enough to find a place in a flat in Earls Court. I had already organised my job before I left Australia. I arrived on a Monday so I only had one week to get settled. I did go to flat sharing agencies but by wednesday I still hadn't found anywhere to live so I settled on a boarding house that advertised in the paper. I didn't really like the landlady. She was a bit of a snob and a skite. Her husband was even worse. Ex army corporal who did all his service in India and still thought he was important. Always making racist comments and deploring how the labour government was ruining the country. He was an early hater of the BBC. He refused to watch it. It only preached communism. I wonder if he lived to see Mrs Thatcher on the throne. He would have had a wet dream thinking about her. Muswell Hill has progressed substantially since I lived here. Many more shops and many more people in the streets. Mostly English though. In 1969 I did have the pleasure of watching Red Squirrels out the dining room window every night after tea as they played in the pine trees. I did enjoy watching Top Of The Pops which we did not get in Australia. Everything was new to me so I had to enjoy myself. We had Fish and Chips for lunch in Muswell Hill. And the restaurant was in existence in 1969. But I cannot remember it. The fish and chips were excellent. If a little expensive. We then took a bus to what was supposedly near Hamstead Heath but it wasn't really. We had a long walk to get to Kenwood House. We walked through a very wealthy area on the way to Kenwood. Some houses would not have been out of place in Brighton. Obviously new builds. We finally arrived at Kenwood House. I'm certain I have been to Kenwood before but the house I visited must have been some other building on the Estate. I have not been to the real Kenwood House. It was worth the long walk to get there. Some great paintings. One absolute first class self portrait by Rembrandt. Was he being honest and did he actually look like he depicted himself. He made himself look wise. And humble. Why did he do so many self portraits? Very well appointed rooms. Many other good paintings. Gainsborough, Turner, Van Dyke etc. Very good volunteer guides. Excellent really. Nice furniture to sit on in each room. Not a lot of people there. We had an interesting conversation with one of the volunteer guides. She explained that she was going through mourning. Someone had died. She didn't say who she was mourning except it was important to her. She was dealing with this by having Art therapy. She has an Art Therapist. She does watercolors with her Therapist. She works one day a week at Kenwood because she wants to have at least a small foot on the ladder of Art. She is shortly going to China to teach English. There is a great view of London from Kenwood House. Must be spectacular on a clear day. It was OK today but the sky was a bit misty. We walked the length of Hamstead Heath on the way to Hamstead Heath overground station. Quite a walk. Mostly through forest. But as per usual in London there were construction works going on. Which meant we had to make diversions. It appears they are going to re introduce Beaver into Hamstead Heath. Lots of digging and construction fences. We came home via the overground to West Hamstead and then by the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines to Preston Road. I had a little chat with our Afghan Shop owner. I asked him if he had a shop in Afghanistan. He said he was a teacher. Arrived home about 6.30. The cleaner did not come. Blood Pressure 123/67 Pulse 72 Nothing on TV. I mean nothing. This is with 120 channels. Late at night there was a Liam Neeson thriller. The Producers had obviously got a lot of money to produce a film with lots of work for stunt men. Lots of irreverent car chases. Lots of irrelevant violence. Film was OK apart from these over the top excesses. Got up at 7.15. Clear sunny skies. Blood Pressure 128/74 Pulse 68
We have to be at the Tower Hill tube by 10.15 to go on the Jewish Walk. This could be tricky as the Circle Line and part of the Metropolitan Line is not working. This proved true but by a piece of good luck we got to the assembly point just on time. We took the Metroploitan Line to Kings Cross and then the Northern Line to Bank. We did not know it but we could walk underground to Monument and then get the southern part of the Circle Line to Tower Hill. We did the Jewish Walk through the East End. We had a very good guide. He explained pretty well everything. We went into a Synagogue. The oldest in London. 400 years old. Very informative talk by the Manager. Lots of history of Sir Moises Montefiore who belonged to this synagogue. Disraeli's father left this Synagogue because he had a blue over synagogue fees and had his children converted to Anglicism but not himself. They are struggling for numbers and only had 4 people at the Service earlier this morning. He did say that because the East End is becoming more hip they now are getting some young people at their Friday Services and things may improve. But its the same with all the synagogues in the City. There are only 3 now. There used to be 40. Another Australian in the crowd said that you have to go to Kilburn High Road if you want to see orthodox Jews. My memory of 45 years ago was seeing lots of obvious Jews in the East End. Dressed like orthodox Jews. Black gowns with big hats. And there was a big Synagogue also. All have gone now. The synagogue was demolished and moved to another suburb. We went to the site of the Free Jewish School no longer there also. Passed through Petticoat Lane. Lots of history. Lots of good talk. Finished up at Liverpool Street Station at the Kindertrain Momument. We then had lunch. I had a curry from a Wasabi inside the concourse. We then walked to a Pret for Jenny to eat. I have to admit that the Pret's do make a good cup of tea. We then took the Northern Line to Kentish Town and went to The Jewish Museum. Ok but probably a bit expensive. A good time line of the Jewish inhabiting of London. Very detailed line map of Jewish Life in London. From 1066 to present day. Modern History of Jewish Trades. Mostly Tailoring. Lots of photo's. A great quite simple history of the holocaust. One English Jew who married a dutch Jew was trapped in Holland when Germany invaded The Netherlands. His passport and papers were destroyed by Dutch acquaintances who claimed they feared reprisals by Dutch collaborators. Consequently he and his wife and young child were among the first rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. He survived but his wife and child were killed as soon as they arrived. He did not know this until the end of the war. He had made simple drawings showing the sequence up to the time when he last saw them. Since the war he has tried to talk to as many people and groups as possible. Schools etc. Anyone. Trying to explain racism. Large crowds at the Camden Town Market. A bit more upmarket than when we were here last. We took the bus back to Baker Street. We are starting to have a more benign attitude to buses. I always look to where they are going. If we have a chance to get on the bus we do. Next time we come we might try and use buses for the majority of the time and only use the tube infrequently. Still have not yet got London's layout in my brain. Not a lot on TV. Watched another show about rock music. Seems to be a show on most nights about English Pop music. I have come to the conclusion that I would be struggling to tape many shows for viewing later. BBC TV I hate to say at the moment is disappointing. Got up at 6.30. Overcast sky. Raining at last.
Blood Pressure 108/58 Pulse 54 Trying to contact people who I worked with 45 years ago. Not easy. There is no white pages telephone book for a start. British Telecom website is hopeless. Would also like to contact Julian Assange but surprisingly difficult. No email address. Anywhere. Watched a Pie in the Sky which I had not seen before. We left at 10.00. Rain threatened. Cool breeze. We went again to have a better look at The Barbicon. Walked around a bit. Many more massive buildings than we thought. The Barbicon Arts Centre is a huge arts centre, film studios etc. All in brutalist concrete. A huge building. Massive space inside. In the shop inside the arts centre you could buy a map showing all the Brutalist Buildings in London. We thought about it but it was too expensive. The place makes you think. I could live there but I don't think it would be good to have a young family. We looked at an exhibition of small paintings by a Pakistini Artist. They were all good. Some were excellent. I also collected a Time Out from the shop. Its not as good as it was 45 years ago. I never once went to The Barbicon 45 years ago yet I knew it existed and wanted to see it. It was after all a showpiece of Socialism.Unfortunately it had a reputation then as a white elephant. I think maybe now they are trying to embrace their brutalist side. It started to rain and we had lunch in a Pret. I had Korean food. One rung up from soup. I like it but it is expensive. Street food is better value. We then went to the London Museum to see what we didn't see yesterday. There are more exhibits than there were 18 months ago. More details on life in the 18th Century. Story about a man who was transported to Australia but was somehow able to return to England within a year. He had the letters TA tattooed on his wrist. This apparently signified that he had been sentenced to Transportation to Australia. Maybe the tattoo said TA7. Meaning 7 years transportation. Maybe this tattoo was put on all people who were transported. Anyway his tattoo was recognised and he was arrested. But he got off on a technicality. They didn't say what the technicality was but they speculated that there were numbers of people transported to Australia who did come back. I thought that all convicts who came to Australia loved the place immediately and never wanted to leave. We then walked to The Guild Hall. The original meaning of guild was gold. This was where you paid your rates in gold. Its really The Gold Hall. This place was a bit of a revelation and goes close to the most interesting place we have been to. We were lucky to be able to go on a tour guided tour. A rather large square out the front thankfully free of people. A building that was deceiving in that it was bigger when you got inside. A very good Art Collection. Overall a very interesting building. And a Roman Amphitheatre in the basement. A real amphitheatre at that. Some very good paintings. Mostly purchased during Queen Victoria's time but also some modern and some ancient. Some very good photographs also. There was a concert on in the main foyer so we could not see all the paintings up close. I am tempted to purchase a print of a drawing done of London in 2014 that brings up to date a drawing of London done in 1614. Cost 58 pounds. Where would we put it? We then walked to The Bank Of England to see their Museum but we were too late. We will go to both places again next week. Home at 6PM. Blood Pressure 121/69 Pulse 69 We watched a history of Pop form 1955 to 1966 on TV. Interesting. There were lots of groups who did not become famous. Some wrote very good songs that were taken up by other people. The show was mainly people in their 70's showing their memorabilia and playing old records on their old record players. People who played in rock and roll bands. Plus the stories of fans who watched them. Two hours of it. Going back to the original venues etc. Of course some of them are dead. Some of those who survived look OK. Fans and performers - mainly women - but some men - showing off their outfits and precious autographs and photo's etc. Some people still wear the same fashions. Like me they are caught in a time warp. But they did good. The world is a better place for what they did. Got up at 6.30. Mostly clear skies with some clouds. Sun shining as usual. Quite warm. Very sore right hip during the night. Woke me up several times. Otherwise slept well. Blood Pressure 108/57 Pulse 83. Worked on computer and read the Age for 1 hour. We took the train to Euston Square and then walked through Bloomsbury area to The British Museum. Very enjoyable. Saw a plaque saying that Lady Ottoline Morell had lived there. I wonder if this was where she and Bertrand Russell had their liaisons. Russell says in his autobiography he could not control himself in her presence. She was just so alluring. We had a good look at London University. Also Bloomsbury. Today was market farmers day. All very good quality produce. We had lunch there. I had fish soup. Jenny had a hot dog. Students everywhere. All looking very privileged which of course they are. More students than I thought went to London University. We went to The British Museum. It was crowded. Loads of schoolkids. We attempted to listen to a guided tour of The Romans in Britain but it was not possible to hear. What I did notice is how many artifacts have been discovered recently. Metal detectors do work. The crowds defeated us. When I went to the British Museum 45 years ago I cannot recall anyone in the square at the front. Not one space anywhere to sit down today I'm afraid. This is the same for all of London. There are a lot of tourists from the continent in London. We then took the Pimlico bus to The Tate Britain. Quite an interesting journey through Westminster. I have to say that The Tate Britain is overall disappointing. They have a lot of old paintings that do not have a lot to do with Art. Its only in the 18th Century when Art actually comes into the equation that the pictures get interesting. Of course I exaggerate. There were genuine Artists from that time and they are featured. Van Dyke, Velasquez, Gainsborough, Turner etc. But they have collected a lot of paintings simply because they are portraits of Aristocrats. Very good room of the Pre Raphaelites. One good Bacon painting. One good room of Hockney. One large room of conceptual Art. If I can be indulged I would like to allow my misogynist nature to become evident. The main attraction in the conceptual art room is Tracey Emin's Bedroom. Why is this Art? Is it only taken seriously because she is a woman? Maybe. Not that I think any of the other pieces in the room are Art either. I listened for a while to the tour guide trying to explain where the Art was in the displays but he was battling uphill and I dropped out. Art has to have something to say and you have to understand it. Contrast the conceptual art in this room with the sculptures of Henry Moore elsewhere in the gallery. Moore's sculptures could be considered conceptual art. But he has come up with shapes and sizes we recognise and understand. I admit that his work is genuine art. Some are great art. The big question is - what is art and how do we recognise it? Who recognised that Tracy Emin's Bed is Art? What annoys me is that Tracey insisted that as part of her installation the gallery had to buy 3 Bacon Paintings and hang them on the walls surrounding her bed. The 3 bacon paintings are from his early period before he got into his stride. And they are not very good. They could have been pot boilers he painted to finance his gambling. They were probably be some of his early paintings that he tried to destroy when he became known. Is she trying to make Bacon look bad? Is she using the paintings to make people think more about her installation. Is there a contrast and connection between Bacon's Paintings and her disheveled bed? Are they equally disheveled? Maybe this is where the Art is? I don't know. We shared a pot of tea in the cafeteria. We brought our own biscuits. We took the bus back to Charing Cross and Jenny bought some theatre tickets. Kenneth Branaghs tickets were 90 Pounds each so we gave it a miss. My alarm woke me up at 6AM. I had a very sore right hip so I didnt feel like getting up. Stayed in bed til 7.15. I have to get more disciplined about this. I will be be waking up in the middle of the night because I have slept too much in the morning.
Another clear fine warm day. Only clouds in the sky are the trails made by jet planes. When the hell is it going to rain? Blood Pressure 126/68 Pulse 71 We left home at around 10.30 to make our way to meet Shelley Williams or to give him his real name Graptus Henderson. He has an Australian passport but he has a descendants visa. Runs for 5 years. We went via train and bus to Shoreditch Station which is near where he lives. We didn't have to get the bus because we were only on it for 2 stops from Liverpool Street but we didn't know this when we got on. Shoreditch has a lot of street art. We explored it a bit waiting for Shelley. We walked around for a little while catching up. He works in a bar mostly during the day. He had today off. I wanted him to take us to Brick Road. But we said we would take him to lunch and he could pick whatever restaurant he liked. I would have preferred some of the street food. Lebanese. Spanish. He picked a restaurant that could have been in Carlton. Clientele included. Food as well. The lunch had very small portions. Even so Jenny and Shelley liked what they had. Me not so much. It did turn out to be very expensive when the bill came. I always want to have street food. Its much less expensive and more tasty. Shelley had to leave to see his girlfriend so walked from the Algate area into the City. We first went to Old Spitalfields Market which unfortunately had lots of yummy looking street food but because we had already eaten we could not take advantage. We then walked to Leadenhall Market. Chalk and cheese as far as markets go. Spitalfields is for the lower classes. Leadenhall is for your Banker type. Seriously banker types everywhere and it had banker prices. We walked along the Petticoat Lane Market through the East End area. Looked at the outside of a Synagogue. Had a beer in a very small Pub and whilst doing so had a conversation with an English person who has been to Australia a few times. Very small atmospheric Pub. My English friend commented on the 3 stage windscreen wipers in Australian cars. Seems it might be unique to Australia. Super fast anyway. Said he had experienced very heavy rain on a trip from Sydney to Canberra some years ago when the road was not a freeway. We then walked back through the city to London Wall and then went to The London Museum. Not many changes since we were here 18 months ago. We had a cup of tea. We then walked through Barbican and looked at the brutalist concrete architecture of the early 50's. During the war the area was bombed badly. After the war the Labour Government built what they hoped would be a model suburb for the working classes. It is all concrete. High Rise Commission Flats. Some not so high commission flats. A small amount of public gardens. Was never approved of by the liberal middle class critics. It is always referred to as one of the failures of the Atlee Labour Government. By this we had done a good deal of walking and we were both tired. So we got the train to Preston Road. Watched a very good documentary about Muslim attitudes in Britain. Much work is needed to change a small but determined minority. No doubt some Muslims want to fight any change. On the train coming home a Muslim woman in full gear sat opposite us. Black covering from head to toe. Mask covering the full face except for a slit for the eyes and she even had spectacles covering her eyes. Would not look at me. I did see her shoes and they were not all that glamorous. I wondered if she would ever read a newspaper? Surely she must watch TV? Maybe she is not allowed to? Why are there no feisty Arab/Muslim women? Surely there must be one in a hundred who says this is not sensible or enjoyable. Why do they continue with it? Finally got my phone working as an alarm clock. Got up at 6.30. Blood Pressure 115/60 Pulse 64 Worked on emails and facebook for 45 minutes. My tattslotto card has run out and I cannot renew it because I cannot recall my password. We walked to the top of Whycam Hill. A fair walk. Good view of Wembley Stadium. It a bit of a jungle up there. Signs saying No Camping and No Fires although it would be easy to camp and no one know you were inside the jungle. Says its part of the 78 mile walk around London. Wet ground. Muddy surface. We took longer than we meant as we had to come home and clean our shoes. Consequently we were late for our appointment at India House. Because I used to have lunch every day at the Indian High Commission I wanted to do it again when we came here this time. 45 years ago it suited me very well. The food was fantastic. It was all very basic. You picked up a plate and got in the line to get your food. There were two choices - rice and curried fish or rice and curried meat. The food always tasted wonderful and was one of the big things I missed about London. The atmosphere was terrific also. The other people eating were pretty well all workers in the Building and were probably just like me - base grade clerks. This was the workers canteen. There was another larger room which had a waitress service and an ala carte menu with tables with table clothes where the higher ups ate but I never went there. I liked the staff canteen. I felt at home amongst the many types of Indians. Sometimes they would engage me in conversation. Sometimes I would impress other people and bring them with me to eat at India House. So I wrote asking if I could once again eat at the Staff Canteen. And if I could show my wife how wonderful it was. The High Commission wrote back saying yes. Our host was Mr MP Singh. He is the First Secretary and seems to be involved with Protocol and organising tours of Foreign Dignitaries. He had a special phone that was something of a hot line. It had a kind of a siren ring and he picked it up immediately. I presume it was The High Commissioner. He had to change some arrangements for something that was going to happen. He has photo's on his wall of many people who he has arranged tours for through India and elsewhere. The Queen, Three Presidents. The Dali Lama. Etc. He also has award plaques from places where he has worked previously indicating the work he has done for the Indian Community. He particularly likes Canada. He says Indians feel more at home in Canada than anywhere else except India of course. Altogether he must have an enjoyable job. He thinks he might become First Secretary in Canberra in a few years time. As it is here he lives close in and has a diplomatic car that is not subject to either parking charges or the daily tax. His life in London must be fairly comfortable. But even with a diplomatic car he takes the tube on weekends as it is impossible to park. What can I say. It was fantastic. He was a very generous and accommodating man. Couldn't have been more sociable. Made us feel very much at ease. Obviously very good at his job. We had a conversation in his office for about half an hour about the world - Australia and India etc. I don't think Australia rates as high on India's scale as our leaders lead us to believe we do. Its the same in Britain. I think that Australia now rates pretty well down the scale of priorities with all of the rest of the world. Not only with Britain and India. Sad and sobering. But understandable. But what is Australia about? Do we really want to make a difference in the world? Do we even want to have a place in the world? It seems not to me. We are so concerned with other things. Trivial but seemingly important to the right side of politics. The only real leader we ever had that had any impact on the rest of the world was Gough Whitlam and Australians hated him for it. I think Tony Abbott sums us up pretty well. He led the way with what our priorities should be. Plebiscites on same sex marriages. Knighthoods for Royalty. And what would have happened if Tony had actually shirt-fronted Vladimir? Big men make big threats do they not? That would have made the rest of the world sit up and take notice of us. In reality Australia is a small country to the south of Asia. They have moved the Staff Canteen from the ground floor to the 7th floor. Security at the front door. Same set up as Canada House last week. Mr Singh said that they have had 2 bad incidents where people got inside the Embassy and once a Policeman was killed. They have to have security because India is such a large country and has so many different types of people. Some only show their grievances in London. The High Commission building itself was built in about 1910. It was where the British governed India from before independence. The Secretaries of State for India and Ceylon and Burma all had their offices in the building. The size of the building reflects the importance that India was to the Empire. The building was granted to India on independence. Mr Singh introduced us to an old English lady that has worked at the embassy for as long as it has been in existence - since 1948. She has been the Librarian. The Embassy has an extensive library in Sanskrit texts among other things. She is retired now but works voluntarily. She is quite old and not too steady on her feet and has trouble hearing. Nevertheless quite interesting to talk to and I wish we could have spoken more. She doesn't like Indian Food. Cant eat it. Had trouble when she was young with her stomach. This was spoken in true British fashion. She lives near Vauxhall Bridge. Her father was in real estate and bought the flat for her. She is the salt of the earth English that I remember. Very frugally dressed. Would also live very frugally. Jenny noticed that she had repaired her overcoat herself. Mr Singh admitted that he had never eaten in the workers staff canteen that I wanted to eat at. They still have the two canteens and he doesn't normally have lunch but when he does he eats in the more comfortable one. He didn't say it in those words though. He was more diplomatic. This was a first for him also. He was curious to see what I liked about it. It was something of the same. Much smaller room. Ambiance much the same. The staff numbers have fallen from 800 to 200 so they don't need such a big room. I felt that all the others dining were a little more up the ladder than 45 years ago. But the food was much the same if a little blander. The same limited range. Mr Singh explained that for this particular fortnight Indians only eat vegetarian and that this means the meals are not as hot. Wonderful tasting rice though. Authentic samosas. Indian yogurt. Absolutely first rate naan bread. Naan to make your mouth water. Soft and fluffy. After lunch Mr Singh made us cardomon tea. This is exactly the tea that used to be served 45 years ago. It finishes off the nice taste you have in your mouth from the curry. We took photo's which Jenny has posted on her blog. When we left he gave us a present to remember the occasion. A paper bag with the High Commission seal on it and some tea and a book about India inside. After that we walked to Benjamin Franklin's House in Charing Cross but it was closed. so then we walked to Handels House. Quite a long walk. There are a multitude of people walking around in the central areas. Only a small proportion are English. Most are from Europe. Are they all here making money? They are not all tourists. Because they talk business into their phones as they walk and they hurry. They move with purpose - and quickly. You rarely hear English spoken. They have made one big difference to London. Everybody now walks on the right side of the sidewalk. No one keeps to the left on the footpath. We had trouble finding Handel's House and Jenny's satnav gave wrong instructions. I asked a man standing where the house was supposed to be if he knew if Handel's House was in this street. He said he didn't know - I then asked if he knew where Jimmi Hendrix's House was. He was quite impressed that I thought he might have known where Jimmi Hemdrix lived. He certainly knew who Jimmi Hendrix was even if he wasn't sure of Handel. He explained he came from Sanfrancisco. He was quite good about it and we chatted for a few seconds. He was obviously impressed that I had actually asked him if he knew where Jimmi Hendrix lived. He was a very conservative looking American. Jimmi Hendrix lived in the house next door to Handel's house. The charity that controls Handel's House has also purchased Jimmi Hendrix's House and turned them both into exhibitions. Both have been restored to their original state. In Handel's case they had to strip away 17 layers of wallpaper. There was no notice anywhere outside the building indicating that this was Handel's/Jimmi Hendrix's. There was a little notice on one doorway saying to go to the next doorway. There are shops on the ground floor. When Hendrix was there there was restaurant on the ground floor. His flat was above the restaurant. It apparently was a fairly seedy area. Not now. Very upmarket shops all over then place. Very gentrified. Hendrix was a very personable man who gave his phone number to anyone and everyone and he invited anyone and everyone back to his flat after gigs. The neighbors did not like this and he always had complaints from the council to deal with. He wanted to live in the area because it was central to all the clubs he played at and he was not familiar with London. The notices on the wall inside the house hint that he was asked to leave. He found it hard to get a flat in London. Landlords did not like rock stars as tenants. For a while he stayed in Ringo Star's flat but neighbors were always taking out restraining orders on noise and disruption and he had to leave there. Even Ringo was asked to leave the area. When John and Yoko lived in Ringo's flat the injunctions came in droves specifically referring to their unwanted presence. Ringo had to promise that only his family (inferring someone like his mother) would live there in order to settle the matter. Handels House is interesting in that it is where it is. His house then was not in the centre of town. London was much smaller then yet he was able to have a very good living from music. His house has been restored faithfully, Colours, furniture, instruments. No kitchen or servants quarters though. The volunteers sitting in each room are all elderly super keen Handel fans who know their stuff. Very helpful. Glad to talk. Jimmi Hendrix's flat has been restored to what it was. There were so many film recordings made in the flat it was easy to make it authentic. Everything has been put in place. Including all his albums. Guitars. Coats. He had more Bob Dylan albums than anyone else. No Beatles or Rolling Stones funnily enough. When he was told Handel lived next door he went out and bought 3 Handel albums. And apparently played them. The volunteer in the bedroom was not up to the standard of the Handel volunteers. He was a young bloke. Not very talkative. Jimmi Hendrix was left handed yet he played a right handed guitar. His father forbade him to play left handed as he considered left handedness to be the work of the devil. So Jimmi had to learn how to play a right handed guitar. He was a genius guitar player. He had a total sense of melody - one note leading into another - all in a line. He could produce melodies to suit any occasion. Yet he always kept the chord structure intact over which the song was constructed. He could always keep the chord structure in the background. He pushed the guitar into playing notes. All with a wrong handed guitar. All self taught. Pity he overindulged when he didn't have the capacity for it. Still we all do this. By this time we had done a lot of walking. All the way from Charing Cross up to Oxford Street and then to Bond Street. I was in pain. Home at about 6.30. Slept in until 7.00AM. Blood Pressure 122/63 Pulse 65.
Listened to a radio programme about Kim Philby. Never admit anything was his motto. Interesting man. Must have been brave. Then I listened to a programme on Evelyn Waugh which was even better. I could read all his books over and over again. Which I have done until I pretty well know them by heart. Pity he did not write more. Why was he so stupid about labour governments and the catholic church? Hard to say. He probably would have wept and prayed at the feet of Mrs Thatcher. A perfect example of honour the work not the man. Had a piece of good luck in the shower. For some reason I put the toilet top down after going to the toilet first thing. When I threw my toothbrush over the top of the shower screen after I had finished cleaning my teeth it ricocheted off the hand basin and alighted on top of the toilet bowel - and luckily the top was down. We would have definitely had a Jerry Seinfeld situation. The water in London is hard. It does not taste like water. Its hard to get a lather up. Not like our pure water at Tarnook. Left home at 10.30 and went via Kings Cross to Ladbroke Grove. We topped up our Oyster cards at Kings Cross. Walked from Ladbroke Grove Tube to Portobello Road. Lots of stalls. Lots of food stalls. Lots of people. A number of quite talented buskers. One group consisted of a father on tambourine and backing vocals, a mate on bass and backing vocals, and twin brothers - one on guitar and vocals and one on drum box and vocals. The twins were identical and must have had a Caribbean mother because luckily they had her hair and not their fathers. And they made good use of it. Quite talented. Put on quite a concert with comments etc between songs. Cannot help but notice that the buskers in London struggle to do well as far as payment goes. I would say that my mate Bill does better in Benalla. Seriously. Lots of people surging about. Thousands and thousands. A great ethnic range. Seemingly all of them tourists. Cannot help but notice the behavior of people of the middle east. They come to London and willingly take part in multi culturalism and enjoy the experience but at home their only objective is to make people conform and to preserve honour. I had a bratwurst. Quite good. Jenny had a falafel. She claimed it was better than my bratwurst. I took advantage of every food sample that was being handed out. I think the British like the Australians like their foreign food to be mild. No sample struck me as being unusual. Or spicy. Of course Portobello Road looks nothing like it did 45 years ago. My memory is that the streets were wider. Stalls were smaller. Not many food stalls. Not many people. No shops along the street as far as I can recall. Just stalls in the middle of the street. Its disturbing when your memory is not perfect. Why don't I remember it perfectly? Now there are a myriad of stalls and shops. Some very specialist shops with expensive silver, gold, jewels etc. We went into one jewelry and painting shop and Jenny saw some big money being handed around. There were even some very small mini malls. I walked to the end of one and had a very satisfying conversation with an artist who sold reasonably good pictures. Some were his own work but most of were examples of friends and family. He specialises and trades in late 19th - early 20th century small landscapes in the style of Constable and the pre Raphaelites. But he only had 3 or 4 painting of this type with him. Very personable man. Would make a good friend. He said I should definitely go to Christies and Sothebys. We took the 23 bus back to Liverpool Street Station. Very interesting. We did a small circle and actually went back and crossed over Portobello Road. We got the bus at Trellick Tower which apparently is one of the landmarks one should see when you come to London. Interesting drive back to the city until we came unexpectedly to Oxford Street then through Piccadilly Circus and finally to Liverpool Street. We watched the Grand National on TV. Dont know how they call it a horse race. Its more of an endurance. They claim the horses like it but I am not convinced. But it did happen 45 years ago the first saturday I was here. A number of horses were killed including one owned by Americans. A lot fell today but we don't know how many were killed. Maybe they keep it secret now. It will come out in time I guess. We then watched Dads Army. The Missing 500 pounds. Watched a history of Top of The Pops in the 70's. The standard had already dropped since I left in 1971. Got worse as time went on. Would only watch a history of Top of The Pops in the 80's to see how bad it was. No mention of Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris ever being involved in the show. They have already been wiped from history. Blood Pressure 120/59 Pulse 62 Woke up at 5.45 and listened to Radio LBC (Leading British Conversations) for about half an hour. Steve Allen is the man who can talk underwater. Looks nothing like you would imagine. He does not have a regular spot. He is on some days and not others. He is on from 5 til 7 on Sunday morning to go over the Sunday papers. How English. I must listen. Then turned on the Parliamentary Channel. Committee looking into why all houses accommodating asylum seekers in one northern town have their front doors painted red. Makes them identifiable to people who want to give the tenants a hard time. And apparently it has been going on for 2 years despite complaints. Very easy to target an asylum seeker. Doors are daubed. Feaces put through the postbox etc. Like Australia all accommodation and services have been turned over to private companies. Three executives were being questioned by a very competent member of parliament. All backpedaled furiously using weasel words. They made great play that they had a hot line for complaints and that they had received 2400 calls in 2 years. Turned out the complainants had to pay One Pound every time they phoned the number. Even then nothing was done. I would say that some employee being a UKIP supporter took it upon himself to make these houses identifiable. Could be some of these executives were involved judging by their super defensive attitudes. Watched question time in the Welsh Assembly. Very different to the Australian Parliament. Maybe they haven't learned how to show contempt yet. Blood Pressure 133/70 Pulse 59 We left home at 10.20. Cooler day. Rain threatened. Walking through Preston Road we commented on the number of Mens Barbers. Must be about 6 in a small area of shops. They appear to cater only to Middle eastern Men. And they are always busy. Having a sharp recently shaved head must have something to do with male masculinity. Could not help noting a man who was having the works. His head was shaved in a ring that was level slightly above his ears. Above his ears he had a number one cut but within this cut were symmetrical lines cut into his hair into some kind of pattern. But he was going bald and on top of his head the pattern was not visible. The impact was lessened. I don't know how much these haircuts cost but lots of men are having them. Must be a matter of honour. We changed to the Jubilee line at Finchley Road and went to Westminster. We were encouraged to take the Westminster Tour by a person handing out pamphlets. He offered 20% off. So we took it. With the Seniors Discount it wasn't so bad. But I must say not as enjoyable as it was 46 years ago. The building has been spruced up. An alarming amount of gold leaf has been inserted onto the building. Not there in the days of austerity. I liked it better then. Who is impressed with gold leaf? And it did not seem to be as well lit as 46 years ago. We were in a group of 17. Lots of security. Counted in and counted out of every staging post. Cannot sit down and cannot touch anything. And we were moved along quickly by the guide. And by the myriad of attendants standing around supervising and talking into their walkie talkies. I found the female guide unsympathetic. She did not like questions. Some very ignorant Americans in the group however. This is the visitor tag you have to wear when you enter the building. They all have a different barcode. In 1969 I was shown around by a man who was a volunteer guide. He couldn't charge but we could give a donation. I was in a group of 5. This was on a saturday morning. Of course there were not as many people in London then. Not the same numbers of Europeans. We seemed to be able to go anywhere and it seemed we did. For instance we walked past and had a look at members offices. They were all very small. There were members of Parliament walking around openly. There was absolutely no security. Lots of time for questions. All very congenial. I sat on the Woolsack because it was made out of Australian Wool. I sat in The Speakers Chair. I sat in the members seats. We should sue the IRA for spoiling everything. After we left the building and walked to Westminster Bridge we were asked to take a couples photo. They were from Vietnam. We told them we were from Australia and the man said "Ah Australia is now part of Asia". Humour from Vietnam. We walked from Westminster to Bank along The Embankment. Saw a Sphinx that was removed from Alexandria and placed on the Embankment in Victoria's time. It was one of the first things bombed during a bombing raid in the First World War in 1914. It must have been a strong bomb because the Sphinx had holes in it. How did the Germans get here? Was it an attack by dirigible? Surely not by winged plane? Can I make another derogatory comment about Australian women. More Australian women than men now have tattoos. One cannot but help note that English Girls do not have tattoos. You cannot help but notice how much better they look. Perhaps I'm biased. We have seen one tattoo shop here but that is all. Not even many men seem to have tattoos. Watched another episode of Timothy West and Prunella Scales on TV traveling in the south on their long boat. Prunella was born near a canal and they actually went there. Suddenly Prunella did not have Alzheimer's. She was the charming woman in control. She remembered every detail of the house she left when she was six and showed the two children who now live there just what she did when she was there. They were transfixed. Of course she is a great actor but I think she was not acting. She was suddenly confident and in charge. She took control of two girls who were about her age when she left. Photo's of her in the house at the age of the two children were shown. Heartbreaking in their way. Watched Ian Hislop's "Workers or Shirkers". Extremely good TV. Excellent history. All the facts at his disposal to confront middle class prejudice. Lots of people displaying petty beliefs. Some film of a very right wing modern politician expressing quite sincere contempt for those on benefits. This type of show could only be made by the BBC. Woke up at 6.06AM. Listened for a while to the radio station LBC (Londons Best Conversations). A commercial radio. Compared by a man who could literally talk under water. Very competent. Commenting on the daily papers and television gossip. Not frightened to make disparaging comments. In fact pretty well all his comments were disparaging. But funny and to the point. Very English. How different to the shock jocks of Australia. Listening promotes much regret and nostalgia about what could have been.
I now maybe regret that I didn't come back to London earlier. This is in hindsight of course. For one thing I would have been able to walk further. There have been changes for the bad but some good things are still intact. There is still evidence of the essential English character being alive. Maybe if I had come back earlier I would have felt too regretful about leaving. Maybe if I had stayed I would have hated all the changes and would have found it hard to cope. There was Mrs Thatcher to contend with. Not only her but the millions who supported her. I was fortunate to have lived in London during the last stages of Atleeism. This was a more secure age for the lower classes. Big Unions and Big State owned Corporations offered a comfortable life for people like me. People were poor but government was good intentioned. People were poor but I thought life was fair. The Government did have a sense of egalitarianism. Everybody was more or less in the same boat. Everybody could get a job. There was full employment and I mean full employment - not someone working 3 hours a week and therefore not considered to be unemployed. People were poor but the intellectual life was rich. People were poor but life had a serious feel to it. And the rich were respectful of the poor. They were wary of showing themselves up. They were fearful of flaunting their wealth. It went without saying they all had philanthropic intentions. Or at least pretended they did. For all of the 20th Century Britain had been edging towards Socialism. A lot of people considered it inevitable. I had hoped it might happen and I wanted it to happen. I liked living in a country that was trying to make it happen. It's all been swept away now. We have people begging in the streets. We have people living on the streets. We have an economic system which guarantees permanent unemployment of between 10% and 20% of the population. We are starting to have generations of people who,live on welfare from cradle to grave. We have people who can never get a job. The proud working class has disappeared. It no longer exists. No doubt our present system is more efficient than Socialism. Mrs Thatcher believed that Socialism was unfair and unjust. She hated it. Her millions of supporters must have thought the same way. Blood Pressure 127/73 Pulse 70 We left the house at approx 10.00AM. Light cloud covering the sky. Still not cold enough for my liking. Took the bus to Wembley Central. Went into stores to try on shoes and trousers. Jenny bought something in Primark. Could not find any shoes that gave instant relief. Could not find trousers to fit. Very hot inside the store. I am so angry about being conned with my shoes that I am determined to suffer for my stupidity. I am not going to buy a new pair of shoes. Unless we can find my special Nike Air of course. Wembley is a very mixed ethnic area. We then took the 82 bus from Wembley to Euston. Long journey. Shops along the way have a Middle Eastern look about them. Until we come closer to London where it has been gentrified. Forty Five years ago there would not have been any businesses or very few and now almost every house has been converted into a small shop. People come here and when they cannot get a job they are forced to try and make a living by setting up small businesses. We are staying quite a way from Central London. Could not walk there in an emergency. I once walked to work from Earls Court when there was a rail strike. Took me one and a half hours. The walk into London from here would take several hours. We had to change buses because the driver had to stop for lunch and there was no relieving driver waiting for him at a certain spot. Everyone had to get off the bus. After 5 minutes another 3 buses came along and a young person who didn't speak very good english gave us a voucher to show the driver on the new bus because we had been forced off the previous bus. Finally arrived at Euston where we had lunch in a Pret A Manger. I had Korean Pork thick soup. Jenny had Tomato. We sat and looked out the window at the people walking in the street. A man was mowing a small lawn nearby. Jenny considered herself much better at mowing than he was at mowing. We then took another bus to Piccadilly Circus because Jenny wanted to buy some souvenirs. I sat next to a person who was studying both a bus map and a tube map. I asked him where he was from and he said Germany. Turned out very friendly and personable. He was only in London for a few days and only had daily bus tickets. Didn't know how to get to Trafalgar Square. He had driven here from Frankfurt. He was staying close to Trafalgar Square and he needed to get back there. We were able to help him. He spoke very good English and I complimented him on this. Turned out he was actually Rumanian and he started learning English in grade 1. He lives in Germany but says he mostly speaks English in his job as a Medical Scanner technician in a large Hospital. We all got off at Piccadilly Circus. Our friend even made a joke about animals and circuses. We showed him how to get to Trafalgar Square. Jenny bought her souvenirs. I thought they were pretty tacky and too expensive. Shop was crowded. Had to queue to pay. Piccadilly Circus is not as good as it was 45 years ago. There is no fence around the circus. Cars go close to the people. There are some interesting historic momentoes below ground. They haven't managed to completely refurbish it. Interesting notices still on the walls. Old signs still intact. One little shop is still there that was there 45 years ago. He has a newspaper article stuck on his wall. The headline is "The Man who Refuses to Move" We then came home changing from the Bakerloo Line to the Metropolitan line at Baker Street. Bought some Afghan bread from one of the many ethnic shops in Preston Road. We are eating leftovers tonight. Watched some TV. University Challenge exactly the same as it was 45 years ago. York University against Penleigh Cambridge. The Four York University participants all had that hang dog apologetic working class look about them. Three out of Four Cambridge participants gave excellent impressions of being competitors in the Upper Class Twit of the Year award. The fourth was a beautiful young girl who held the ship afloat. Why do some intellectual woman have to be so good looking? Of course Cambridge won. Some questions very hard. Lots of answers wrong. We are both in better shape today that we were yesterday. To bed at about 8.30. Slept well. Woke up at 6.00AM. Watched a bit of Carry on at your Convenience for a while until it became unwatchable. The same 120 channels available as last time. A few nostalgic old films on. I then watched the Parliamentary channel for a longer while. Scenes from both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments. They both make the Australian Parliament look uncivilised which of course it is. Also a lecture about the Easter Uprising by historians. Some mention of the large number of women involved which is not very well known. Blood Pressure 121/78 Pulse 85. We left home at 10.00AM. Light cloud covering the sky. Still quite warm. Went by tube to Liverpool Street. At one of the stations we passed through football hooligans were chanting some slogan. Very disconcerting. Reminded me of Skinheads behavior in 1970 in almost the same circumstances. Finally got to Liverpool Street. Last time we were here it was being renovated. Finished now although the MacDonalds I used as a toilet is no longer there. The Station has a sign that says Toilets with an arrow but I could not find them. Did the IRA ever understand what kind of lasting impact they would have on London? We should sue them for pain and suffering. 46 years ago there were toilets everywhere. Or so it seemed to me. We walked towards the city but it being Sunday everything was closed. Including Leadenhall Market. We will have to come back again during the week because I have not been there before. We noted that Threadneedle Street was off to the right. Building going on everywhere. Police and Firetrucks driving up the street with sirens blaring. We waited for some time for a bus and eventually a couple told us that the street did not have any buses as they had been diverted. We walked until we found a bus to Hoxton and went to the Geffrye Museum. This is a Museum showing the evolution of the house or home since the 16th Century. Well worth the visit. It is crammed with examples of everything relevant to living over the past 4 centuries. I listened to some extracts from Samuel Pepys. His passion was house renovation. He definitely did similar things to what we do. For instance : On one day he walked to Bermondsey. Looked at the shops. Bought some building material. Went home to find the washing everywhere and the house in disorder. Looked at his maid and noted he could see her breasts through her clothing. What has changed in 400 years ? Dont we all do this from time to time? Or whenever we get the chance? The Museum building itself looks American. Like Washington could have owned it. Even has the look of the American Embassy in Canberra. Must have been built at the same time. Beautiful lawn and garden. It was originally a charity that gave homes to poor ex servants. Donated by a wealthy middling sort. An Ironmonger who made it in politics. Name of Geffrye. Houses have got bigger and more complex over the past 400 years. This is obvious but its interesting to have it laid out for you to see. Houses have got better and bigger. Didn't have water on tap until very recently. The standing of servants and staff has surprisingly changed also. In 1600 servants were part of the family and were treated well. They were important people. Mainly female. Society at that time was only Aristocrats and those who served them. As time went on the "middling sorts" (those between the aristocrats and lower classes) made more money and created the middle class. In time they became the real ruling class. They controlled public tastes. Houses reflected this. The position of servants changed - it became a lesser respected position. Masters and Staff were strictly segregated. The museum has displays of rooms from each century or half century which show the evolution. We both have injuries which prevent us from doing much. I did not want to walk any more and Jenny has a painful looking blister on her heel. So we had lunch at the Museum Cafe. I had Pea Soup with sourdough bread. Jenny had salad with cheese. We had a problem in ordering the tea. We wanted one pot with two cups. The male waiter could not understand. We explained twice but he kept saying two teas so we let it go, But when he sent a girl to deliver I explained that what we had really wanted was one pot and two cups. We would have been drinking all the afternoon if we had accepted both pots. No sooner had she said she would fix it and gone back to the serving area that he came almost running up asking what the problem was. The real problem was that he wasn't English and the nice waitress was. And that he was in a superior position and felt his authority was being compromised. Anyway we told him he misunderstood what we asked. He calmed down. Had no choice because the girl had already changed our bill. Perhaps she got into trouble later. We took three different trains to get home. North and south London now has an above ground system that is integrated with the underground. You can do a complete loop of London above ground if you want to. We got back to Preston Road at 4.30PM. Both very sore. Jenny took off her shoe to walk home from the station. We had salad and rissoles for tea. Meat bought from The Cooperative in Preston Road on the way home. We watched Michael Portello on a Northern line for a while but mainly we watched Timothy West and Prunella Scales on their longboat. She knows she is in the early stages of alzheimers. But she can still talk. Not to good on doing two things at once. Steering the boat and changing the speed is a problem. Anyway the scenery was amazing. Lots of historic background shown. Interviews with experts on waterways. Very enjoyable programme. To bed at 9.00PM Slept well. Blood Pressure 176/81 after walking up two flights of steps but after 15 minutes it was 132/63. Pulse 79. Woke up at 6.15. Listening to Radio 4 breakfast. Listened to The Impersonator on the BBC website. I remember hearing this in the dairy when I was about eleven after milking when I was cleaning up. I could listen to the radio in the dairy. My mother would not let me listen in the house. We left the house around 10.30. Fine day. No clouds. Got hotter as the day wore on. Of course all the buildings we entered had the heater turned up to 11. Took the tube to Finchley Road. Went into Waitrose's. I think the English supermarkets display their produce better than Australia's. Very attractive produce and lots of choices. I hope they dont have a lot of wastage. We then walked to Sainsbury's. The last time we were in Finchley Road I had to break our bus journey because I had to go to the toilet. Exactly at this building. When we went into the same building today we knew where we were. After walking around a bit we got on the bus and went to Baker Street. Sat next to a girl from Slovakia. Most people on buses do not look English. Lots of tourists around Swiss Cottage. Lots of people in the streets at Baker Street. Took note of the large Mosque at Swiss Cottage. Looked at the long queue of people to get into the Sherlock Holmes Museum in Baker Street. Couldn't discern any clues from inspecting their faces. Mainly South East Asian. Both sexes. Doorman dressed as a London Bobby. Dont know why its so popular. Also checked out the Beatles Shop a few doors down. Lots of stuff but fairly expensive. Did not buy anything. Had a Chicken Bean Soup in a Pret a Manger. It was really too thick to be classed as soup. Went back to the Sigmund Freud Museum at Finchley Road. Very interesting. Wonderful back garden. Real English. Looking at the Freud Family Tree you cannot help notice that three of Freud's sisters died in 3 different Concentration Camps. All three killed by the Nazis. A very different result to what happened to him. How must he have felt? Of course no one knew what the Germans were going to do. Freud with the help of what was called "intense diplomatic activity" was able to bring out all his furniture and effects when he fled Germany. His rooms in London almost duplicated his rooms in Vienna. Museum is thought provoking. Getting this close to Freud makes you think if you could ever survive psychiatric analysis. In the Anna Freud Room there were 14 questions that have to be asked. Just when did I last do a stupid thing? How have your self destructive urges manifested themselves? Etc. Just a few of the questions. Very confronting. Very apt though. Could I ever admit even to a psychiatrist my weaknesses? The big question to ask is - what would my life have been like if I had gone to a proper psychiatrist when I was young? By this time my body was in danger of locking up. I have blisters on both feet. I feel like suing Athletes Foot. I have already looked up their website but of course no email address for complaints. We went to both Waitrose's and Sainsbury's to get tonight's tea. Then home to Preston Road. When Tosans mother let us in the building the day we arrived she mentioned she was a food caterer. I immediately said I would like to sample her cooking as we had never eaten Nigerian food before. I thought I was being amusing but last night her son called at our door and asked if we would like to go and eat with them. The food was fantastic. Two types of fish with vegetables and rice. We met the father Louis, the cousin whose name I cannot recall, the daughter Missan, the girlfreind whose name I cannot recall. All very nice. We talked of general things. Their minds are focused on Europe and America. Australia is hardly on the radar. As I said the food was fantastic. I drank the majority of the wine. To bed at 9.30. Slept well. Blood Pressure 132/70. Pulse 82 |
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