The Melancholy Event

Bill writes: Sorry we haven't posted in a while--things have been kinda hectic. To make a long and very complicated story shorter and slightly less complicated, the vet Grommet had been using left and another took over Grommet's case. He had a different take on things. So on Monday the 13th he called us and basically gave us two options if we wanted him to sign Grommet's "Fit to Fly" certificate that would allow him to fly home with us:

1. Put Grommet in for treatment in London, which would mean 30 days quarrantine in a small cage in the cat hospital, plus another few weeks before he was settled down with us enough to fly back to the US. This would also require us extending our trip by six weeks and finding another flat to live in, me staying in London while Aline got back to work, etc.

2. Flying home that week.

So we picked option number 2 and flew home three days later.

Which is our way of saying we're back home in Sunnyvale. We're all safe and sound after a fairly uneventful trip (even if Customs in San Francisco said they didn't necessarily have to give our cat back to us because my airline ticket said "William Baeck" and my driver's license said "William Leo Baeck"--so we might not be the same person. I suppose it had something to do with HOMELAND SECURITY and smuggling in cats of mass destruction.

Well, anyways, just wanted to post this quick note. And don't worry, we still have some London experiences we need to post, so we'll continue updating the blog for a while. Plus, now we can add things like how confused we are by American culture since we've been gone. (Like why are $10 bills colored differently than when we left, why are tip jars sprouting up everywhere for Take Out food, and what's with the new nickel with only half of Jefferson's head on it? Couldn't he sit still to have his portrait done without dashing off midway through?)

In the meantime, some friends have asked what it felt like to leave London. It felt like this:

I Want my Cat TV!

Bill writes: At home, Grommet has always liked watching videos designed for cats, so we picked up a cat DVD at the vet's. Every morning he sits in front of the DVD player until we put the DVD in. Here he's puzzling out how the TV turned into a turtle aquarium, a birdcage, and a fishbowl (where the fish is puzzling him out, too).

Westminster Cathedral

Bill writes: It was a bit cold and snowy last week and Aline was home with the flu, so I went off on my dull round of trying to make it to every library in London. I think I've just about done it--well at least for Westminster. Anyways, on the way to one near Victoria station, I passed the Westminster Cathedral. This is NOT the Abbey, this is a catholic church built in 1895. It looks like it was designed with the same sensibility that lead to the Brighton Pavillion. The sort of over the top, moorish, layered effect is striking, even though it is now sadly sandwiched between two modern buildings with no sympathy for the design of the cathedral.



Inside, unfortunately, the most notable thing about it is the lack of light. I don't know if it's due to the nearby buildings blocking the sunshine, but the interior is quite dark.



But on the way out, I noticed an elevator leading to the top of the campaneile. For three quid, the elevator attendant takes you to the top, some 300 feet up, and lets you walk around to your heart's content. From this bell tower, there's a fine view of the city. After I was up there for a while, a couple of older ladies came up, too. They were on their big day out from the countryside--taking in the musical "Billy Elliot" playing across the road and seeing this cathedral as their big "sight" for their sightseeing that day.

Medical Museums

Bill writes: During a cold or two that Aline has had over what is turning into London's endless winter, I found myself going to smallish museums that I knew she wouldn't be interested in, and so wouldn't mind missing.

England is a nation of collectors. This is particularly evident in museums founded by the medical professions. Each association (in itself evidence of the need to collect, in this case themselves rather than things) have permanent exhibits within their respective headquarters. By putting their history in glass cases, they offer the public (and themselves) evidence of their lineage and longstanding importance to the nation.

The Hunterian Collection

Bill writes: First up was the Hunterian Collection housed in the Royal College of Surgeons building, a fine and imposing structure that by its greek columns shows you right off that this is a profession that can trace its ancestry right back to Hippocrates.



The Hunterian Collection was put together by the surgeon John Hunter who collected specimens of plants, animals, and people, producing many thousands of preparations during the 1700's which were then purchased by the government in 1799. The present collection consists mainly of several enormous rooms filled with what are politely termed "medical preparations." In actuality, it represents thousands of jars and boxes filled with diseased body parts. Although a hugely important collection from a medical and teaching standpoint, its curiosities range from the fascinating to the freak show. With endless rows of tumours, deformities, and injuries, it is a catalog of the pain nature inflicts on the human body. In the end, it is difficult to recommend the Hunterian Collection, as it is a museum consisting mainly of things you'd rather not know.

Photographs weren't allowed, but you can read and see more of it here.

http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/history

http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/history/collections.html

The British Dental Association Museum

Bill writes: The British Dental Association has a small collection of artefacts from the history of modern dentistry in the UK. I went there partly because Aline was home with a cold. But partly I was curious to find out why, to put it gently, the contents of an english smile often display a certain carefree individuality, and why it was occasionaly I'm reminded of the tiny library in our flat, its two shelves holding books of various sizes, their brown and green leather covers canted at random angles.

The museum does not get many visitors, judging by the kindly reception I received. The lone attendant took my coat and walked me around, rightfully proud of the collection. And I have to say, though tiny compared to the Hunterian, it was a wonderful antidote to it as well. Far from being frightening, the Dental Association's museum was frankly charming, making dentistry seem like a warm victorian pleasure. (Though I'm certain it wasn't.) For instance, there's this inviting chair.



And this almost magical looking dental drill from 1864.



And who'd have guessed they had dental floss in 1818?




At the end, I did ask the curator if she'd heard the story I'd always heard about a need for so many false teeth for brits that was largely due to the lack of fresh milk during the second world war. She'd never heard of this, so my dental quest goes on.

The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland Museum

Bill writes: The third medical museum I went to was the one belonging to the Assocation of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland. As with the Hunterian Collection, this too was started with the collection of an individual--Charles King (1888-1965). It has items ranging from 1774 to the 1990s.



I'm still deciding whether these three museums were uplifting or depressing. Uplifting in people's attempts to alleviate suffering, and depressing that there was is so much suffering. Somebody pass the ether, please.

Cafe Blogging

Bill: We've found two cafes not to far away that provide free wireless internet access. So we've bundled up our laptops and are blogging away from Vickie's and now Roma's. Ahh, heating and hot mint tea. Much better than the garden.

Albertropolis

Bill writes: We saw this building on our "Albertropolis" walk through London with our class last Tuesday. I was fond of this building across from the Albert Hall. By the way, I had a friend named Albert Hall in high school. Just thought I'd put that in.



And here is the Albert Memorial, of which there is no Victorian memorial more over-the-top. If you look closely near the white base of the memorial on the right hand side, you can see a fellow cleaning the monument. He's doing it with a kitchen dish sponge. I will never, ever complain about doing the washing up after dinner again.



We also went to the British Museum, which is a grand building inside.



and out.



And I thought this new building across from the Royal College of London was clever. Not enough money for a nice design, so they put in reflective glass and simply reflected the original tower from the college.

Coventry – the City

Aline writes: Coventry Cathedral is not the only church in Coventry – there are several other notable churches, as well as church ruins from Saxon times. For example, The Holy Trinity Church stands close to the cathedral – the first mention of this church is in 1113. It’s quite nice inside, but the most amazing thing is the medieval Doom painting (from the 1430’s), up on the arch near the roof. It was rediscovered in the 1800’s, and was restored in 2002. It’s quite far away, so this is the best picture we could get. Click on it to see a bigger version.







There are also excavations of a major Saxon church, and an undercroft of a Benedictine priory where they have found some bookbinding materials. This church was probably destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries during the 16th century. Henry VIII has a lot to answer for!

Earl Leofric and his wife Lady Godiva founded this priory church sometime around 1020. Yes, she of the famous naked ride. There is a statue of her in the town square.


And lest you think that Coventry is all churches, here is a little toy museum we visited. This was typical of little English museums. It was in a small historic building (this is the gatehouse to an old religious site), informal (the door was unlocked with no attendant – we turned on the lights and looked around. When we got upstairs, a man peeked his head around a curtain and asked us to turn of the lights when we were done), and eclectic. Ah, childhood memories!




Coventry also has a street of medieval building undestroyed by the bombing. Here is one nice example.


Finally there was a beautiful medieval guildhouse just up the street from the cathedral.


Here is the inner courtyard.


And we ate lunch in the undercroft.


Bill adds: While Aline went to an art museum, I went to the British Automotive Museum. Before the war, Coventry was home to numerous automobile manufacturers. The museum houses many examples of these, from old cars like these.


To new ones like one of the land speed record holders.

But my favorite part of the museum held a collection of bicycles. The earliest was this Hobby Horse (yes, that's where we get the phrase from) invented by a German forester named Baron Von Drais in 1818. It was used by wealthy people to parade in parks with. To operate it, you sat on the saddle to the left, draped your chest over the long padded bar, and steered with the the little wooden bar in the middle. As it had no pedals and chain connecting to either wagon wheel, you simply scooted with a skating motion. With practice you could move at nearly the same speed as if you were walking. Yes, well, perhaps this was used by wealthy people whose ancestors had married each other's cousins. And now I know why there's such an implication of the ridiculous about riding one's hobby horse.

Coventry – the Cathedral

Aline writes: We went on a day trip to Coventry, primarily to see the cathedral. And boy was it worth it! But Coventry has more than a spectacular cathedral: it also has toys, medieval houses, Saxon ruins, and the best Medieval Doom painting in Europe.

But first, the cathedral.

On the night of Thursday, November 14, 1940, a German air raid devastated the city of Coventry, destroying the cathedral in the process. It was the only English city to lose its cathedral in the Second World War. The morning after the raid, the city vowed to rebuild it. But what makes it unique is that the cathedral was not rebuilt as a replica, which we saw so often in Germany; rather the cathedral ruins were allowed to stand and a new modern cathedral was built next to it, and in fact is linked to it both spatially and architecturally. It may be the most moving religious site I have been to.

Here you can see the old cathedral ruins on the right, and the corner of the new cathedral on the left. They are linked with a walkway in between them. It’s so big you can’t get everything in one picture!




The fabulous sculpture of Saint Michael and the Devil by Sir Jacob Epstein is on the outside of the new cathedral and depicts the final winning of good over evil.


These pictures from the inside of the old cathedral speak for themselves. There are even shards of stained glass still in the windows frames.




On the altar, the cathedral’s stonemason tied two of the charred medieval roof timbers found in the rubble and erected it as a cross. Together with the words Father Forgive inscribed behind it, it makes for a powerful and moving image.


The new cathedral, designed by Sir Basil Spence, stands alongside the ruins. On first seeing the ruins, he says “I was deeply moved. I saw the old cathedral as standing clearly for the Sacrifice, one side of the Christian Faith, and I knew my task was to design a new one which would stand for the triumph of the Resurrection…”

It is unabashedly modern but somehow sympathetic to the site. For example, the west screen merges images of saints and angels who look over the cathedral ruins, which you can clearly see through the window.


This picture shows the Tapestry designed by Graham Sutherland.


The new cathedral is filled with fabulous stained glass, such as this Baptistry window that represents the light of God breaking into the world.



The cathedral alone was worth the trip, but there is so much more! See the next post for more on Coventry.

Unexpected London: Dog Taxis

Bill writes: There must be a special dogs-only taxi service in London. While this may look like a jolly little scene, there's actually something quite sinister about it. The cab was fully up on the sidewalk, and there was no driver to be seen anywhere. The dogs also seemed suspiciously well fed.

Unexpected London: Dry Cleaners for Sexual Change

Bill writes: I'm not even sure what to say about this, except it shows something marvelous about british culture's inability to acknowledge a grand double entendre. Where's Ronnie Barker now that we need him? Oh, right.

A Man and his Puppet Daughter

Aline writes: as I have mentioned in earlier posts, we have been seeing lots of plays the last few months. The highlight for me is probably the one I saw several weeks ago, a new play done on the Fringe (off-off Broadway equivalent). Named Imogen, it was about a man who has lost his daughter and can't let go of her. It had so much – a life-size doll puppet with two visible puppeteers, reprenting the lead charater's daughter Imogen, carrying on quite normal conversations with her. It was really beautifully done - very moving and wonderfully acted. The puppeteers were visible, but the puppet was totally convincing in its movements, even with 2 people standing behind it. There were moments of incredible beauty – such as a dream scene where he floats with the aid of the puppeteers, and it really did seem as if he was floating. If you ever have an opportunity to see it, do! The lead actor was really fabulous - and he would have to be to pull it off. I still think about it almost every day. The closest experience I can compare it to is the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci given in Berkeley a few years ago, for those of you lucky enough to have seen that!

Medieval English

Aline writes: We went and saw a fascinating talk at the Museum of London on the English language in London in medieval times. The lecturer was from Cambridge, and she talked about documents written in the 1300 and 1400's, and how they combined English and Norman French, or English and Latin. Documents were actually written in this combination language, where the nouns might be English, but the word order, prepositions, and gender might be Norman French. This was apparently done so the widest number of people could understand these commercial documents. English wasn't used in a standard way until the late 1500's/1600's, and wasn’t widely understood either. So the documents are almost primers for the language, where in one line the clerk might use the French word for "stone" and the next line might use the English word for "stone". Who knew?

The World of Jeeves and Wooster

Aline writes: Thanks to our friend Josephine we had the chance to eat in a London club. Josephine, one of our classmates in our London history class, invited us to join her for lunch when our class met around St. James, also known as “clubland.” Her club is called the Over-Seas League. It’s located right near the Ritz hotel, and not only has a private garden terrace but it backs onto the lovely Green Park. It has a café and a restaurant; we had a nice lunch in the café, typical English food. It was just how you might imagine a club to be (especially if you watch Jeeves and Wooster like we do.) Lots of dark wood, comfy chairs, men in suits, and a reading room with a beautiful view over Green Park, wing chairs, all the daily newspapers, and drinks service. It also has hotel rooms so that members who don’t live in London can stay there, as well as reciprocal agreements with other clubs around the world. It’s a whole little community I didn’t know anything about.

Josephine pointed out that this is a very modest club – some are very exclusive and expensive and have multi-year waiting lists. But even to join this one you have to be recommended by a current club member and have a recommendation by some upstanding member of the community like a judge. I guess that lets us out.

Oh, Rochester!

Bill writes: In late January we took the train to Rochester. Known mostly for its connections to Charles Dickens, it is an old cathedral and castle town as well. I'd visited there on my own during my last sabbaticals back in 2001. The city has changed a bit from my last trip there. There's a big casino going up on the edge of town and a "Fairies and Trolls" fetish wear store as you enter Rochester. Things seem to be sliding downhill there, and this was confirmed by the sad fact that the Dickens Centre has permanently closed. This was a sort of Disney "Hall of Presidents" version of Dickens life and characters recreated in his old house. By peeking through the back garden (we've gotten very good at trespassing since we've been here), we could just make out his cottage that was moved there from nearby Gads Hill.

There is a museum nearby that does house some of the items related to Dickens. Also fascinating to me was material they collected related to French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars. Prisoners were kept for long periods in converted cargo ships anchored off shore in the river under terrible conditions.

The land-based French prisoners were far luckier. Because they were artistic and industrious (and to keep from going insane), they would carve items out of bone. Some of these items were simple things like sets of dice, letter openers, and combs. But gradually the prisoners began making more intricate carvings, including little mechanical devices which they would then sell to the prison wardens for sale to the public, earning the prisoners money for better scraps of food. Eventually, with the help of French officers in the prisons, this was organized into a full industry, with proper workshops and tools, and even craft shops set up in towns like Leek and Staffordshire that sold their goods directly to the public. Here's a sample ship that they carved.



Although Dicken's house is closed, fortunately they've left the cathedral in place and it remains open to the public. The cathedral was founded by Bishop Justus in 604 AD at the request of Augustine, and was added on to over the years. The best view, I think, is from a window in the castle across the road.



Inside, some of the treasures of the cathedral are the wonderfully preserved romanesque arches, a magnificent pipe organ, and part of a 13th Century wall painting illustrating a wheel of fortune--one of the finest medieval wall paintings in England.







There is even some very old graffiti, testifying to its long use.



Below the cathedral lies its large undercroft.



Afterwards, we went to the castle. Built in the late 11th Century by Gundolf, Bishop of Rochester, King John laid seige to it in the 13th Century. It was rebuilt inthe 14th Century. Yet it suffered further attacks over the years, was used as a quarry for building material in the 17th Century, became a park in the 19th Century, until is was finally preserved for the public by English Heritage in the 20th. (Speaking of seiges, the last entrance to the Castle was at 3:45 and we arrived at 3:48. At first they didn't want to let us in, but after some pleading they relented, the gates were opened, and the castle was ours.)



Inside, it's a ruin--just the stone shell that survived the attack. The hall, state apartments, musician's gallery, etc. are all gone.





The one constant in anyone who looks at castles, is this sight of the poorly lit steps. Not exactly warmly beckoning, and it would have been even less attractive without the safety rail (which not all castle ruins thoughtfully provide).





Still, by following the stone steps from level to level, you can explore most of the castle, and even get to the top. England, being a less litigious country, assumes visitors to famous sites have a little common sense and won't automatically hurl themselves off the battlements. Hence, you'll notice that there isn't very much in the way of a guard rail along the castle rim, 120 above the town.



By the time we left the castle, it was later afternoon and growing dark, and we'd both grown cold. As for myself, after a day walking outdoors through the cold, whipping winds blowing off the river Medway, my nose had gradually turned from pink to red, and my arches had changed from concave to convex, making it difficult for me to stand in one place without rocking backwards and forwards, so that I'd taken on the appearance of a child's socker-bopper blowup clown. Fortunately, before any passing schoolchildren got the wrong idea about me, I recalled a nice tea shop across from the cathedral when I'd been here several years earlier, and knowing Aline's fondness for a good cream tea, was able to track it down fairly easily. One cheery thing to notice is that outside of London, meals (and teas) are often half the price they are in London.



From tea, it was off to the railway station, and so to home and central heat once again.