Windsor Castle
Windsor
Castle dominates the skyline. Impenetrable. Radiates solidity.
Royal
standard means queen in residence.
Union Jack
means queen is absent.
Outside
Windsor Castle are crowds of Japanese tourists. With ear muffs and cameras.
Local shops
dominate. Very few aimed at us tourists.
Tea/coffee
in the little crooked shop. Cute quaint, low ceilings, small doors narrow
streets. Reassuring.
The Robin
We have
lunch at this pub.
Above the
urinals glass cabinets containing front and back pages of “The Times”. Very
distracting. About to led to a wet floor. Dark walls covered with pictures
photos artifacts. A few small windows. Log fires.
Rhonan
recommends Bangers and Mash. Fantastic dish. Perfect.
Ski in the
carpark on our shoes. An old lady comes out of the pub and waves her finger at
me: Someone could injure themselves doing that.”
She was not
angry. More worried not angry.
Hampton Court Palace
All staff
in uniforms. Band of musicians playing a fanfare. The staff play out some
scenes of ancient happenings. The actors enjoy. Laughing all the time. The
audience also enjoys it. So ridiculous and such fun. Rooms enormous with large
tapestries large pictures. Furniture is minute and sparse.
An area of
Henry VIII. Walls covered with heads of buck, horns, carved wooden heads.
Marble carvings blue and white china. We follow move and look.
Jester on
stilts. Looks unbalanced. We wander and soak in the atmosphere.
In kitchens
many staff/actors playing their parts. One cooking chicken on a spit. Making
mashed peas, pies, fish and prunes bread.
The staff
mashing the peas: You can’t taste the peas. You can ask me to eat it.
I refrain
from asking.
Maze full
of tourists. Philippines. Very cold. Everybody moves continuously. Half
running. Moving, moving dead end go back find the middle. a tree covered with
initials.
British Museum
Mind
numbing; humbling the range and quality. Hidden away amongst treasures from all
over the world I find one exhibit coming from Australia. An aboriginal bark
painting about 100 years old.
Sherlock Holmes Pub
We eat lunch.
Very expensive. Full of tourists.
Traditional
fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, steak and kidney pie, roast beef desert is
baked puddings, spotted dick, bread and butter pudding baked treacle pudding.
All with custard.
Can’t
modernise without destroying.
Smoking
Americans and Irish. No traditional Englishmen in the place. Except what came
in with us.
Westminster Abbey
Dereck:
It’s against my principles to pay to enter.
Me: Okay
I’ll pay.
We enter.
Big crowds. Audio tours. marble statues. Intricate glassworks. Ceiling is carved wood work.
Dereck:
This is where Princes Di was buried. I know a couple of her bodyguards and they
say she was a real… I want say it in here but they are different from us.
Parasites sponging off us.
National Portrait Gallery
Photographic
exhibition. Winning photos have all been touched up and altered.
Portraits
in 19th C style. Military men; politicians; marble busts of the famous ones.
All reverential heroic blank grim expressions that tell you nothing about the
person. A sign of success is your portrait painted. Or marble bust. Often using
a death mask. Showing the person at the end of his career. Paintings not chosen
for their quality. Chosen because of the importance of the subject. No painting
of unknown soldiers.
Outside are
more statues. Heroes of the British Empire. All males except Queen V. All have
done the Empire proud. Soldiers; politicians; some on horses. Statues
everywhere. The statue and the honours list are award for service or sacrifice.
Some have made the supreme sacrifice. There statue will live forever.
Covent Garden
Outside is
one lone guitar busker. Inside Covent Garden a few stalls selling junk and old
china. Some using barrows. Book shops, cafes.
Crowds of
tourists. Mainly European. crowds walking, talking, bumping, looking at
everybody else. Which is what we do.
String
quartet busking. Playing very well. Minimal response.
Leicester Square
Tourists
milling. A miracle occurs. I find a toilet. Through Fun-land. Noisy loud
flashing lights dropping rides children scream
worse for boys they have to appear tough and show no fear and not scream
Piccadilly
Circus: Lights shine brightly in the darkness. Nobody but tourists and a few
taxis trying to run people down.
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