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 Old Blighty

Here I am, back in London. In Belsize Park at the moment, using Spooner's macbook, which is a bit of a challenge. I'm getting a slow start today on account of jet lag and a very tiring arrival day. But I got up at 9 a.m., so my internal clock is half way to being adjusted.

The trip over was uneventful, but LONG -- 15 hours from door to door, using every mode of transport but boat. First the drive to the Massport lot in Framingham, then the Logan Express bus to the airport, then the flight (landed around 7 a.m.), an hour and a half on the tube to Belsize Park and a short walk to Spooner's house. The only good thing about the flight (it sure wasn't the food -- this time I tried the Hindu meal, and it was the same as all the other alternatives that Virgin Atlantic serves up, i.e. rice, overcooked veg and mystery sauce -- which upset my digestive system something wicked) was the inflight entertainment. I watched the film Somers Town, which I'd wanted to see while I was in London but it had just left the cinemas in Swiss Cottage and Finchley Road. It's by the same director who made This is England, and stars the same kid, who is about 15 now. There's really not much of a plot -- it's mostly vingnettes about a kid from the Midlands who's come to London, and his new mate, a Polish immigrant boy whose dad works in construction at the new St Pancras International station. It's quite charming, and I always like when I recognize places in Brit movies.

So, after my nap yesterday, I hopped on the 168 bus down to Camden Town, bought a bagel at Fresh and Wild, and headed for Regent's Park to wander around. It's a vast place -- not as big and wild as Hampstead Heath, but it took me longer than I'd guesstimated to make my way past the zoo to the Victorian drinking fountain, around by the bird sanctuary to the west side where the London Mosque is, over to the band shell which was blown up (killing 7 Royal Green Jackets in the band) by the IRA, around the Inner Circle -- with a wander through the secret garden at St John's Lodge -- and out the York Gate to Marylebone Road.

As I was walking down the Marylebone Road to the tube station at Baker Street, a tourist from South Asia stopped me and asked how to get to Oxford Street. This was a first -- it's always been me reluctantly asking someone for directions. Maybe I finally look like I know where I'm going (that's only semi-true). But I was able to quickly show him on my map where he was and how to get to Baker Street for a bus to Oxford Street. Once I was in the tube station, I had to ask someone on the platform if the train for Plaistow (wherever that is) would stop at Aldgate East.

I met up with my mates Helen and Judy in Whitechapel High Street, the beginning point for a guided walk about Jewish radicalism in the East End from 1881 to 1905. Jet lagged as I was, I think I was able to take in most of it at the time, but I can't remember any of the people we learned about at the moment, except for Samuel Gompers, who we learned attended the Jews' Free School in Bell Lane (building destroyed in the Blitz). We saw the Jewish Soup Kitchen in Brune Street, the former site of Mossy Marks' deli in Wentworth Street (I have to find out if that's the place that James Mason visits in The London Nobody Knows), and ended in Princelet Street. Afterwards, Helen and Judy and I had dinner in a restaurant in the newly renovated (read: soul sucked out of it) Spitalfields Market. (Rosenbeans, you wouldn't recognise the place -- it looks nothing like the funky market we went to four years ago.)

Pedometer reading for yesterday: Over 20,000 steps, 8.5 miles.

Expenses:

• £20 to top up my Oyster card (I'll need to add more later)
• 69p for the bagel
  
• 7 quid for the East End walk (it costs £3.50 if you're non-waged)
  
• £1.05 for postcards
• a tenner for dinner
  

Cardigan - Finished!

I started this sweater in March, when it was still cold out and I could picture myself wearing it as we transitioned into spring. Nice plan. Spring moved into summer, and the sweater (knit from the neck down all in one piece) got too heavy to have on my lap on hot days so I put it aside. Now we're in another cool spell and I finally finished it. And I wore it yesterday. It's comfy and stylish, and I got several compliments on it. The yarn is South West Trading Twizé bamboo and has a nice shine to it. Love it!

Last night, I cast on another pair of fingerless mitts for one of my Flickr pals who didn't get a pair in the previous Mitts for Mates gift giving. No pix of that until after the gift has been given.

Another trip, another plan

It's time for me to start planning my September trip to London. My loyal readers (all four of them) will think that this blog is sounding like a broken record. The main focus of this trip is London Open House Weekend -- two days when over 600 buildings, usually not accessible by the general public, will open their doors to the hoi polloi. I've placed my online order for the booklet (5 quid) detailing all the buildings that will be open so that I can start making my plan of attack.

I'd actually given some thought to going over without having made a spreadsheet for the trip. Who am I kidding? As if. But the spreadsheet is looking mighty empty right now, and I've got to get cracking. I reckon the weather will be much better in September than what I've had in my previous April and October visits, and so I'm thinking of doing some walks along the Thames, weather permitting. One might be in Chiswick, and another from Tower Bridge to Rotherhithe. I'd also like to go back to Southbank Mosaics to volunteer again. I'll post more as the plan takes shape.

My Wordle

I made this at Wordle.net, but I can't figure out how to make it look bigger on this page. You'll just have to click on it. Wordle makes a graphic representation of the words you use in your blog. It's pretty cool.