Green Park – derrickjknight

‘If It’s Worth A Photograph……’

Today’s advent picture is similar to the first, but has a different coloured central star. This seems to me to offer far more variation than one would see today. It is worthy of note that there are very few pedestrians admiring the window display and the vehicles on Regent Street in December 1963 are all taxis or buses.

As we set off for Southampton Parkway this morning, foraging ponies loomed out of a heavy mist weakly penetrated by a myopic sun resembling a haloed full moon shrouded by thick clouds. Visibility on the A31 was most meagre. There were some clear patches on the M27 giving layered views of the bordering forest trees. Foreground silhouettes would give way to a barely visible row followed by bright golden ones. The pattern would be repeated into the distance.

By the time my train had reached Waterloo the sun’s warmth had drawn most of the mist up into the ether. That which lingered over the Thames presented dreamy views of Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. An oriental gentleman resting a super-long lens on the parapet of the Golden Jubilee Bridge told me what stunning sights he had just seen from the top of the London Eye. I apprised him of the reason I was unable to emulate him.

The Christmas fair on South Bank flourished. One of the stalls sold its own version of festive lighting. Like Catherine wheels they spun, expanded, and contracted. The timing of this photograph was a delicate matter of trial and error.

Crossing The Strand and walking through Trafalgar Square I was afforded a clearer view of the blue cockerel poised either to drink from the fountain or to peck at Nelson’s other eye. I now understand that the sculpture is not French after all. It is the work of German artist Katharina Fritsch who describes it as ‘feminist’.

On the piazza before the National Gallery a diminutive, motionless pirate perched on his own plinth. Dropping £1 into his hat I said: ‘If it’s worth a photograph, it’s worth a donation’. Silently, without moving any other, even facial, muscle, like a jointed puppet, he raised his glass in acknowledgement. I don’t know whether he had been aware I’d shot him.

From the square I walked up Haymarket to Piccadilly Circus and along Piccadilly itself to Green Park where I boarded a Jubilee Line train to Neasden and thence to Norman’s. Eros, presumably in preparation for the revelries to come, is now encased in a bubble.

A bagman I had seen over the years in numerous parts of London adjusted his load after having effected bicycle repairs.

Fortnum and Mason’s windows reflected the seasonal mood.

At Green Park I was to regret parting with my last coin. I needed a pee, which can now only be obtained by inserting 30p into a machine. So I had to ask the man at the ticket office to change a £10 note. The smallest coin he gave me was 50p. The machines don’t give change, so what once cost one old penny was subject to 120x inflation.

Norman fed us on a roast turkey and Christmas pudding lunch with which we shared an excellent bottle of Vacqueras 2011, after which I took my usual route to Carol’s and then on to Waterloo. Jackie collected me from Southampton.

The Abdication

Jackie drove me to and from Southampton for my trip to London to visit first Norman, then Carol.

I chose the Golden Jubilee Bridge route to walk to Green Park.

The South Bank living sculpture I had photographed on 18th June had, as usual, caught the eye of another lens wielder.

Making my way to the bridge I became aware of how, from certain directions, London’s modern Eye can dwarf the older structures that tourists come to picture.

On one of the supports of the railway bridge a pair of pigeons, possibly having produced fertiliser for an optimistic maple that had taken root beside them, slumbered in apparent ignorance of the lumbering locomotives behind them.

Passing The Playhouse theatre at Charing Cross, I was treated to the strains of Spamalot’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, being broadcast into the street. That truly hilarious song from the Monty Python ‘Life of Brian’ film of 1979 could so easily have been blasphemous, but somehow managed to avoid it.

Near Trafalgar Square, where Admiral Lord Nelson keeps his single eye on an era he could not have dreamed of whilst saving the English nation at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, one of Westminster Bridge’s lone pipers had found a new pitch.

The empty plinth, which periodically provides a temporary pedestal for pieces of modern sculpture, awaits its next tenant.

A silent male dancer entertained the crowds beneath the National Gallery. They gave him quite a lot of breathing space.

On Pall Mall vast throngs, some looking rather disgruntled, queued for what would perforce be a very leisurely sightseeing tour through London’s traffic.

In my Central London years I often shopped in Jermyn Street at sales time. I am no longer tempted because I still wear shirts bought there up to three or four decades ago. In addition to Cary Grant, Hawes & Curtis are featuring Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson hoping to attract prospective customers to take advantage of their large reductions. In his brief tenure this playboy king provoked a constitutional crisis in 1936 by his determination to marry his twice divorced lover. In that bygone age this was acceptable neither to the Church nor the State. He therefore chose to abdicate and thrust his younger brother onto centre stage. A reluctant and shy monarch, King George VI, despite a dreadful stutter, with his wife Elizabeth, saw us nobly through the war years and, in 1952, died young, making way for our current long-serving queen. Colin Firth was awarded a well earned Oscar for his spellbinding performance in the 2010 film ‘The King’s Speech’ which follows King George’s struggles to find his voice. One has to wonder how the shirt-makers chose their particular icons.

In Green Park those who can still comfortably get down to ground level eschewed the deck chairs and sat on the grass.

For lunch, Norman served tender kleftiko, savoury rice, red cabbage and mixed vegetables followed by apricot flan. In anticipation of my forthcoming birthday he provided a superb Primitivo di Manduria wine of 2010.

I took my usual transport to Carol’s and thence to Waterloo for the return journey. On the train, with the back of my hand, I managed to slap a sleeping young woman beside me on the thigh. As she dozed, the pen with which she had been writing rolled off the table. I used my marvellous reflexes in an attempt to prevent it from falling to the floor between our seats. The thigh got in the way, and the ballpoint disappeared into the dark recess, so I was forced to slip my arm down the gap to retrieve it. My co-passenger woke up with a start and was very good about it.

A Vigil

I had some difficulty reading the Oxford History on the train to Waterloo today. After unsuccessfully struggling to shut out a conversation between two men sitting opposite about a business meeting concerning the creation of a website, I decamped to a seat further up the carriage. This was not entirely successful; first because their voices continued unabated throughout the journey, and were most penetrating; secondly because even they could not compete with that of a young woman like delivering like a monologue to her friend like mostly about the like stupid people like on Jeremy Kyle, or about like her own like relationship and whether it was like on or off. Even her sandwich was inadequate to stem the flow. Her constant repetition reminded me of a similar speech delivered on a commuter train from Newark to London about twenty years ago. It would have been impossible to calculate how many times the words Tom and Cruise were woven into a young woman’s delivery taking the whole of a journey of an hour and a quarter.

Just, no doubt, for variety, today’s cacophony was supplemented by the speaker system. Some time after we left Woking, the last stop before Waterloo, we were treated to the automatic announcement welcoming us to this train and listing every single station since its departure. Twice. On the way back I sat in the quiet coach.

I chose a different route to walk from Waterloo to Green Park where I boarded a Jubilee Line train to Neasden. This was across the Golden Jubilee Bridge to Charing Cross station and onwards via St. Martin’s-in-the-fields, Leicester Square, Shaftesbury Avenue, and Piccadilly Circus with a diversion along Jermyn Street.

A bitterly cold wind swept across the bridge and I admired the spirit of those in the London Voyages speedboat that rushed underneath it.

Overlooking Embankment I gained a different perspective on tourists’ fascination with our red telephone boxes.

On the steps of the famous church beside Trafalgar Square, with a companion, 72 year old Nara Greenway is holding a vigil in memory of 117 Tibetans who have immolated themselves.

One of the features of sightseers’ London is the group of visitors being lectured on the city and its history. The speaker in Jermyn street sounded German to me so I could not tell if he was relating the tale of Beau Brummel, the early nineteenth century dandy who stood behind him. Notes were being taken.

Not to be confused with the memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, in Hyde Park, the Diana drinking fountain in Green Park was originally erected in 1954. It stands near a food and drinks outlet near the Piccadilly entrance. Presumably the vendors do not see it as a serious rival waterhole. As it was in disrepair, retaining E.J.Clack’s statue of ‘Diana of the tree tops’, the fountain was replaced in 2012 by The Constance Fund which exists to promote the art of sculpture in London’s parks. The huntress and her hound, perched above their gilded supports, were interestingly silhouetted against the grey sky.

Norman produced turkey thighs and vegetable bake followed by trifle for lunch with which we shared a bottle of Carta Roja.

School was out as I walked back to Neasden underground station to catch the tube train direct to Waterloo to return to Southampton where Jackie collected me. Children in various stages of disarray, accompanied by or straggling behind their parents, wended their way home. One small boy, wearing his bright green uniform jumper with his raincoat hung loosely over his head by means of its hood, carrying his blue plastic schoolwork container, ran on ahead and skidded to a halt when bellowed at by his father.

A Splendid Occasion

Today completes a blogging year. As is appropriate for this particular one, it rained throughout in Minstead, although not in London.

Jackie was pleased to be able to drive Gladys and Dave to Southampton Parkway with us. Their trip to Edinburgh happily coincided with my London visits to Norman and Carol.

I took my usual walk from Waterloo to Green Park where I boarded my Jubilee Line train to Neasden.

I don’t normally plan a photograph or manipulate the image to change it. I picture what I see and crop if suitable. At almost any time of the day or night in central London, a helicopter will be seen hovering overhead or making a dash to a hospital. Today one was hovering apparently motionless high above the Thames. After I’d photographed it, I realised the potential for setting the flying machine against the London Eye. Walking on to that feature of the skyline, I raised the camera and pressed the shutter. Faster than the movement of my finger was the flight of the pigeon that stole the shot. Serendipity indeed.

The London Dungeon exhibition first opened in Tooley Street near Guy’s hospital some time in the 1970s. It is a series of waxworks tableaux representing historic horrific happenings in the capital. When Matthew and Becky were still quite young I took them there to see it. No way would they be persuaded to enter. These horrors are now housed in part of the old County Hall, alongside the river. For years I have been under the misapprehension that it was such as the body that lies at the top of the steps outside the new premises that deterred our children. Not a bit of it. ‘It was the rats’, was the explanation Becky recently gave me. Given that Matthew soon kept them as pets, I was rather surprised by this.

At eleven o’clock this morning Westminster Bridge was marginally easier than usual to traverse half way across. After this point it was far more populated than ever. Every race and nationality in the world must have been represented. Whitehall was cordoned off. The only way to cross it was via the public subway at Westminster tube station. The reason for the helicopter became apparent when police cars blocked the entrance to the Houses of Parliament car park. Every few feet along the approaching streets stood a police officer facing rows of crash barriers. Crowds of people packed the thoroughfare, cameras hopefully raised at arms lengths above the throngs. There seemed to me no chance of any point and shoot device snatching a reasonable image of the horse guards and ceremonial coaches glinting in the occasional sunshine. I focussed on the crowds through which I was elbowing my way, thankful that I could see over most of the heads. I had stumbled upon the State Opening of Parliament.

Having reached the comparative sedateness of St. James’s Park, my way across The Mall was again blocked. The band I had heard getting nearer as I crossed the park turned out to be a military one. The crash barriers and police protecting the musicians were supplemented the length of this famous street by guardsmen in their splendid uniforms. There was one pedestrian route across, reminiscent of Birdcage Walk during the London Marathon (see 25th September last year). Every so often one of the guards would present his rifle and march back and forth across the pathway, eventually returning to his place and shouldering arms. Pedestrians had to hang fire while this went on. The whole route from Admiralty Arch to Buckingham Palace was a sight to behold.

At the entrance to Green Park itself, a pair of golden arches suggested that McDonalds was now sponsoring this national treasure.

Walking through Brent’s Church Road market, I felt I was in a different city.

Norman produced a roast pork dinner followed by apple strudel, accompanied by a fine Italian red wine. I then took my usual route to Carol’s, and afterwards the amazingly frequent 507 bus to Waterloo and the train back to Southampton for Jackie to drive me home.

The two way train journey was sufficient for me to devour Jack London’s excellent story ‘The Call of the Wild’, in the Folio society edition, superbly illustrated by Abigail Rorer. It is the savage yet tender tale of Buck, a phenomenal dog who eventually obeys the call.