Immortalized on Walls

Most of yesterday's adventures will be shown in photos (now on Flickr). It was a morning of solitary roaming through Southwark to see more Dickens sites, most notably the one remaining wall of the Marshalsea Prison where his own father was imprisoned as a debtor and where much of Little Dorrit is set. I also saw places where gaols had once been, and saw Dickens immortalized as a primary school and Little Dorrit as a street. Near the beginning of the walk, I stopped into Borough Market to get portable food -- a spinach and goat cheese tart and lovely banana cake.

By early afternoon I had reached Waterloo to begin my walk through Lambeth to see the various projects of Southbank Mosaics. I started by circling St John's churchyard, where there are several mosaic benches and some other sculptural works in progress. I cut down Lower Marsh Street and nipped into I Knit and to Crockatt & Powell Booksellers -- didn't buy anything at either, but was tempted at the bookshop (50% off going out of business sale, which is quite sad as this independent bookseller is a much-loved institution in the neighborhood). On my route, I found about half of the mosaics I was looking for. The ones I didn't find included seating and a mural in Archbishop's Park (I think they are in the kiddie play area, and it's uncomfortable being a lone adult with camera in a playground) and a fountain that I thought was at the junction of Lambeth Palace Road and the Albert Embankment, but I sure didn't see it.

What I did find were the mosaics in four street underpasses (going under the railway tracks that lead into Waterloo Station). The first was Salamanca Street underpass, where the mosaics commemorate the Battle of Salamanca, the Spanish city itself, and the Duke of Wellington. Next was Black Prince Road, where the mosaics have to do with the Black Prince himself and with Doulton ceramics (the former Doulton factory is in this road -- the facade is still decorated with impressive tilework). Working my way back towards Waterloo, I next saw the Blake mosaic murals in the Carlisle Lane underpass. Blake, who lived for 10 years in nearby Hercules Road had written that he wanted his works to be enlarged and hung for the public to see. I think he would have approved of the mosaics.

I knew that I'd see the mosaic I worked on (by putting in a half a dozen glass bits) in the Centaur Street underpass, but I got the best surprise -- at the very end of the row (the west end, as I was coming from Hercules Road) is a plaque that names all the people who worked on the mosaics of Project Blake, including my five mates and me. So, my name is now on a wall in London. I'm chuffed.

The day ended with tea near the Coliseum with a Flickr mate, and then back to Belsize Park for drinks on Greg and Esther's roof terrace and a great dinner at a French restaurant.

Our plan for the weekend includes working in a bunch of Open House locations (all north of the Euston Road for Saturday, south of it on Sunday) and theatre tonight.

Distance covered: 32,655 (13.40 miles)
Expenses: 50p to use two loos (one in a church -- they shouldn't be charging)
£2 spinach and goat cheese tart
£2 banana cake
£4 Garden Museum
£10 to top up my Oyster card
£20 drinks and dinner

Dickens in Southwark

View Dickens in Southwark in a larger map

I've made yet another walking tour map. This one follows nearly verbatim and step-by-step the Dickens in Southwark walk on Richard Jones's London Walking Tours website. I'm not sure if I'll climb the 311 steps to the top of the Monument at the beginning of the walk (nah, too chicken) or pay to see the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret at St Thomas Church. I've got this planned for a Friday so that I can buy portable food for the day at Borough Market. The banana cake and brownies from Flour Power City Bakery there are to die for.

The last walk I need to map out is Blake in Lambeth before I start plotting out our plan of attack for London Open House weekend. I hope my loyal readers aren't getting too bored by these maps. I've made them public on Google maps, and I surprised to see that they're getting quite a few views, so I'm curious if other people are actually printing them out and using them. If you do, please leave me a comment and let me know how it went for you.

Open House, Part 1

As we all could have predicted, I'd planned more than we could do on the Saturday of Open House Weekend. Way more. I had 15 index cards that I wrote out and sorted for Saturday -- we made it to 8 of the destinations. Here's a quick list of the places we hit:

• City Hall (where Boris presides over the Greater London Authority)
  
• [Borough Market -- Not an Open House destination, but we stopped here to get portable food to sustain us through the day]
• Allies and Morrison Studios (an architectural firm)
• Blue Fin Building (designed by Allies and Morrison; home of IPC Media)
  
• Kirkaldy Testing Works (Grade II listed industrial building, purpose-built to house D Kirkaldy's unique testing machine, now restored)
  
• Freemason's Hall (no photos allowed in this top secret place, but I just may have taken one when the poobahs weren't looking)
• St George's Bloomsbury (the last of Hawksmoor's six London churches, consecrated in 1730, recently restored)
  
• German Gymnasium in Pancras Road (1861, the first purpose-built gymnasium in Britain, now the King's Cross visitor centre)
  
• St Pancras Old Church (there's been a church on this site since the 4th century; the one there now has Norman and Victorian parts)
  

When I post the pix of all these things on Flickr, I'll fill in more of the details about each building. I think we had a good mix of historic and modern stuff.

That evening, we went to see a play at the New End Theatre up in Hampstead. I could hardly stay awake (but I did!).

Pedometer reading: 25,000 steps, 10.1 miles (I have blisters to prove it)

Expenses:

• £3 for a chicken & veg pasty and £2 for a brownie at Borough Market
• Another tenner to top up the Oyster card
  
• Spooner treated me to theatre
  

Street Art and Skeletons

Oh, crikey, did I overdo it on arrival day! My back was really sore yesterday (day 2). Fortunately, I'd planned a pretty low-key day that didn't tax my body or my brain any too much.

I finally got out the door around 11 and took the tube to Embankment. I like to take the bus whenever I can (it's cheaper and I can see where I'm going), but I made up for lost time sleeping, blogging and dawdling by taking the tube most places yesterday. My destination was the Southbank, and I could have ridden one more stop to Waterloo, but I decided to walk over the Jubilee footbridge since it wasn't raining. First stop: Hayward Gallery, where I watched the Appearing Rooms on the terrace and saw a small exhibition called View Basket: Art Bought Online. For a two-week period in August, the person who put the exhibition together purchased things listed on eBay as "art" from UK sellers. As the items arrive at the Hayward, they are added to the exhibition -- there are now nearly 50 items on display. The "art" ranged from a watercolor of a chihuahua to action figures to a limited edition book made by David Hockney. My favorite was the nearly full-size bust of Freddie Mercury made of Legos.

From there, I headed to Leake Street, where there's a disused train tunnel that's been covered in graffiti. It was the site of the Cans Festival of street artists like Banksy this past summer, and much of it has recently been repainted by second (or third?) tier street artists. It was really dark, but I did get a few good photos at either end of the tunnel where there was more light. I'll add a few here when I get home and can upload pix.

For lunch, I got a tuna & sweet corn sandwich and a beverage and sat near the London Eye to eat. When Spooner first got to London 5 years ago, he ate tuna & sweet corn sandwiches for days while he was looking for a place to live. Rosenbeans and I ate them often when we visited him in 2004. Now, I eat one of these delicacies on each trip as an homage to past times with my mates, cos food connects us to our culture and history, right?

Back across the Jubilee Bridge and back on the tube to Oxford Circus. Destination: Getty Images Gallery to see London Through a Lens, a great assemblage of black and white photos of London from the Getty's archives. Lots of images of Brits at work, play and war. One of the best was of a swarm of kiddies rushing en masse into a sweetshop when the rationing of sweets was lifted in 1950 or so.

I saw on my map that I was very near the BBC Shop, so I went over to Margaret Street in hopes of getting some Top Gear tat for rosenbeans for her birthday prezzie. I thought a Richard Hammond action figure would be really nice. But the shop was nowhere to be found, so I walked 2 blocks north to Broadcasting House to see if they had a shop there. Nope. They do all their sales online now. Sorry, rosenbeans. It's the thought that counts.

Back to Oxford Circus to get the tube to Euston. Next stop: the Wellcome Collection to see Skeletons, an exhibition of excavated remains of Londoners -- Romans, medieval folk, and 19th century dead -- done in conjunction with the Museum of London. Whenever there's a building project in London and remains or artifacts are found, construction comes to a screeching halt while the archaeologists take all the bones and bits out of the ground. These 26 skeletons came from 8 different sites around London. Each is laid out in a glass case, with info about their age, gender, injuries or illnesses as diagnosed from the bones, and speculation as to their occupation or social class. Many had rickets, some had syphilis, and some showed signs of a diet of much protein and fat causing obesity. One woman was pregnant at her death, and the little fetus bones were there with hers. Several children had serious rickets or were born with syphilis. Men had broken bones from battle or brawling. A bit creepy, but interesting stuff.

On my way back up the Euston Road, I stopped in at St Pancras Parish Church to see the art exhibit in the crypt. It was various pieces done with light. The crypt is dark and dank, and the art wasn't doing anything for me, so I moved on and caught the 168 bus back to Belsize Park.

Spooner called soon after I got back to his place to tell me to meet him for dinner in Swiss Cottage, in a restaurant he couldn't remember the name of in a street with a name that he didn't know. But I found it without any trouble. We went to the Hampstead Theatre afterwards -- a new production of Brecht's Turandot that left us scratching our heads.

Pedometer readings: 16800 steps, 6.91 miles

Expenses:

• £3.08 for sandwich and beverage
• I owe Spooner a tenner for dinner (I paid up before I left)
  

Greetings from London

I've made it to the UK and, except for a to-the-skin drenching on my first day when I was locked out of Roger's house on account of having a bogus key, things are going great. We've walked miles and miles and I have blisters on my feet to prove it. Thankfully, they have special plasters for blisters here.

Here's a quick list of what we've seen and done so far:

• Borough Market and Southwark (our first Banksy seen here)
• Portobello Road Market
• Pearly Harvest Festival
• Charles Dickens' House
• Inns of Court (the Temple Church wasn't open so Roger didn't get to see the Knights Templar)
• Banksy sighting in Chalk Farm
  
• To and from Brighton on the Megabus (wicked cheap!)
• Fish & chips, a night in a seamy B&B, excellent pies and mushy peas, and another Banksy sighting in Brighton
  

Today and tomorrow I'm on my own. The weather has been most cooperative, but today's it's raining again so my plan is to do some museums. Tomorrow the sun should be out and I'll be taking the Docklands Light Rail down to Greenwich.

Further reports to come.