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.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Topics
All
Archives
February 2024
|