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.
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