Houses of Parliament – derrickjknight

Paddling Along The Thames Part One

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Norman 6.4.02

Given his abiding interest in Paddle Steamers, it was only to be expected that my friend Norman should celebrate his 70th birthday,

by hiring the Viscount to give all his friends a boat trip to remember. In the second of these images, Norman greets the guests as they embark. Today I scanned this batch of colour negatives from 6th April 2002.

We were offered a waterborne view of The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The last of these images contains the queue of people walking along Westminster Bridge to visit the coffin of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, whose body was lying in state. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about

‘Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was the wife of King George VI and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. She was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from her husband’s accession in 1936 until his death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother,^[2] to avoid confusion with her daughter. She was the last Empress of India.

Born into a family of British nobility, she came to prominence in 1923 when she married the Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. The couple and their daughters embodied traditional ideas of family and public service.^[3] She undertook a variety of public engagements and became known for her consistently cheerful countenance.^[4]

In 1936, her husband unexpectedly became king when his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Elizabeth then became queen. She accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to France and North America before the start of the Second World War. During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public. In recognition of her role as an asset to British interests, Adolf Hitler described her as “the most dangerous woman in Europe”.^[5] After the war, her husband’s health deteriorated and she was widowed at the age of 51. Her elder daughter, aged 25, became the new queen.

From the death of Queen Mary in 1953 Elizabeth was viewed as the matriarch of the British royal family. In her later years, she was a consistently popular member of the family, even when other members were suffering from low levels of public approval.^[6] She continued an active public life until just a few months before her death at the age of 101, seven weeks after the death of her younger daughter, Princess Margaret.’

As we steamed under that bridge guests were already happily mingling.

St Paul’s Cathedral stood proud along the embankment. It was in this place of worship that Norman had been ordained some years before.

Blackfriar's Railway Bridge

Soon we arrived at Blackfriar’s Railway Bridge,

beyond which we reached the recently reopened Millennium Bridge, known by Londoners as the Wobbly Bridge, and beyond this Southwark Bridge.

This extract from Wikepedia’s entry on the Millennium Bridge explains how it acquired its epithet:

‘The Millennium Bridge, officially known as the London Millennium Footbridge, is a steel suspension bridge for pedestrians crossing the River Thames in London, linking Bankside with the City of London. It is located between Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge. It is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. Construction began in 1998, and it initially opened in June 2000.

Londoners nicknamed the bridge the “Wobbly Bridge” after pedestrians felt unexpected swaying motion. The bridge was closed later on opening day, and after two days of limited access, it was closed for almost two years while modifications were made to eliminate the motion. It reopened in 2002.’

Beyond Southwark Bridge lies the famous Tower Bridge, near which is moored H.M.S. Belfast.

Wikipedia tells us this about the museum ship:

‘HMS Belfast is a Town-class light cruiser that was built for the Royal Navy, currently permanently moored as a museum ship on the River Thames in London, England, operated by the Imperial War Museum.

Construction of Belfast, the first ship in the Royal Navy to be named after the capital city of Northern Ireland and one of ten Town-class cruisers, began in December 1936. She was launched on St Patrick’s Day 1938. Commissioned in early August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Belfast was initially part of the British naval blockade against Germany. In November 1939, Belfast struck a German mine and spent more than two years undergoing extensive repairs. Belfast returned to action in November 1942 with improved firepower, radar equipment, and armour. Belfast saw action escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during 1943 and in December 1943 played an important role in the Battle of North Cape, assisting in the destruction of the German warship Scharnhorst. In June 1944, Belfast took part in Operation Overlord supporting the Normandy landings. In June 1945, Belfast was redeployed to the Far East to join the British Pacific Fleet, arriving shortly before the end of the Second World War. Belfast saw further combat action in 1950–52 during the Korean War and underwent an extensive modernisation between 1956 and 1959. A number of further overseas commissions followed before Belfast entered reserve in 1963.

In 1967, efforts were initiated to avert Belfast‘s expected scrapping and to preserve her as a museum ship. A joint committee of the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Ministry of Defence were established and then reported in June 1968 that preservation was practical. In 1971, the government decided against preservation, prompting the formation of the private HMS Belfast Trust to campaign for her preservation. The efforts of the Trust were successful, and the government transferred the ship to the Trust in July 1971. Brought to London, she was moored on the River Thames near Tower Bridge in the Pool of London. Opened to the public in October 1971, Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978. A popular tourist attraction, Belfast receives over a quarter of a million visitors per year.^[8] As a branch of a national museum and part of the National Historic Fleet, Belfast is supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, admissions income, and the museum’s commercial activities. The ship was closed to visitors following an accident in November 2011 and re-opened on 18 May 2012.’

Tower of London and St Paul's

Beyond Tower Bridge, St Paul’s still dominates the horizon.

Soon we passed another paddle steamer, the Dixie Queen, a luxury party boat; and the Tower of London.

I would have been very remiss had I not photographed Oliver’s Wharf and made a print for my grandson Oliver. The Victorian Web has this to say about this building on Wapping High Street:

‘Oliver’s Wharf. F. & H. Francis. 1869-70. Wapping, London E1. Built for George Oliver “in the Tudor gothic style, this wharf handled general cargo but had special facilities for tea” (Craig et al. 45). Bought for redevelopment in 1972, it was the first warehouse in Wapping, and one of the first of all the old warehouses, to be converted into housing, yielding twenty-three very expensive luxury flats. It has been described as “the most architecturally sophisticated warehouse” in its street (Williamson et al. 228).

I made many images of this event, and will continue the story in due course.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips with pickled onions and gherkins.

No More Shell Building

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As usual when I travel to London, Waterloo, Jackie drove me to and from New Milton today. Apart from the fact that the ticket office was closed because the system wasn’t working, and I held up the queue for the machine on the platform because I didn’t know how to use it, the journey was uneventful.

When I last took today’s walk from Waterloo Station, across Westminster Bridge to Carol’s home off Victoria Street, I would have crossed York Road by footbridge from the station concourse. This was not possible today. The bridge was closed and we had to walk down steps on the station side, and along the road until reaching the County Hall corner before we could cross.

A great, gaping hole appeared where the Shell Building, a landmark as long as I can remember, had stood when I made the trip a year ago.

This is to become a South Bank Development of ‘exceptionally stylish apartments’. Apparently people are already queuing up to acquire them although prices have not yet been fixed.

Around the corner, on the approach to The London Eye, I noticed two men in hard hats sitting against the background of building works.

As I came nearer, one of the very friendly men held up warning hands to ensure that I did not, without a hard hat, enter the site. The other gentleman came over to me and we had a pleasant conversation during which he suggested I might prefer to be photographing the New Forest.

I then shot the scene without the workers.

Once on Westminster Bridge I was reminded how difficult it is to negotiate that thoroughfare during the tourist season.

The piper, however, was given some breathing space.

An assiduous road sweeper kept the area around Parliament Square suitably tidy. The Plane tree around which he had just wielded his brush, was bursting into leaf,

as were those in an unusually quiet Victoria Street,

and outside St Stephen’s Church, Rochester Row.

I didn’t note the name of the excellent Italian restaurant in that street where Carol and I enjoyed each other’s company over a superb meal. My choice was a tortellini and clear chicken stock soup followed by sea food risotto. We both chose creme brûlée. I drank Friuli sauvignon.

I returned to Waterloo on the 507 bus, from which I gained a clear view of Lambeth Palace.

P.S. Perusal of the comments by Paul and Geoff below, will show that the title and the inference of this post is only partially correct. The main tower remains. It is just the lower levels that have been removed.

Sun And Wind

Jackie provided her usual chauffeur service to and from New Milton for my London trip.

The four coach train was as packed as usual. One gentleman kindly removed his luggage from one of the few available seats so that I could sit down. The gentleman opposite me was fast asleep. His baggage lay between his feet which stretched under the window seat. Settling one buttock on that and another on the centre one I fitted my legs around the somnolent passenger as demonstrated in the photograph. He woke with a start at Brockenhurst and asked where he was. When told, he relaxed, but didn’t change his position. This group disembarked at Southampton Airport. They were replaced by others, but the newcomers had to fit round me, which was preferable.

It was a dull, blustery, noon as I approached the Archduke to meet Norman for lunch. Somehow or other, my great friend Wolf had managed to reach the railway bridge between the arches from with the restaurant presumably derived its name to provide the appropriate embellishment.

Maybe he used the crane.

My choice for lunch was the sea trout. Norman chose belly of pork, and we both opted for the pecan pie for dessert. We shared a bottle of Sicilian shiraz.

By the time I emerged from the restaurant to be blown along South Bank and across Westminster Bridge to visit Carol, the temperature had dropped to finger-tingling levels, but the sun had now come out, silhouetting the Houses of Parliament, peeking through crevices in the decorative architecture; outlining the faces of photographers’ subjects; providing side lighting for Gothic greatcoats and the supports of the bridge; setting young girls’ hair alight; and lending a translucence to the glass cases of ornamental lamps.

Jackie and I have recently begun the watch the Father Brown series on television. This is based on G.K.Chesterton’s classic stories of a sleuthing Roman Catholic priest, and has led me to begin reading them. I got through a few on the train today.

1,000 Days

In bright sunlight this morning I played around with the super vivid setting on the camera. I reduced the saturation in the saw picture in order to reproduce the natural colours which still look pretty unreal. This tool was discovered when we were clearing the overgrown hedging on the back drive, and remains where we propped it.

The timid tits approaching the bird feeder stop off in the shrubs behind it in order to watch for their moment to swoop and snatch up their sustenance before being attacked by more belligerent birds such as robins, or assassinated by humans who may have set out the larder as bait for nefarious purposes.

I forget the name of the influential art master who taught for a short time at Wimbledon College. Rather a tempestuous character, he was sacked for beating up Adam Pardon. He helped us to see that trees were not simply a single brown in hue. Nothing makes this clearer than the range of russets, oranges, ochres, greens, yellows and indigoes sported by the decaying wood of our dead stumps or discarded planks. These photographs have not exaggerated them much.

Becky and Ian had given me Boris Johnson’s timely publication ‘The Churchill Factor’ for Christmas. Rather appropriately, I finished reading it today. Boris has written neither a history, nor a biography, but an extended eulogy for the great man. This is a very readable book, benefiting from the writer’s admirable research and entertaining facility with the language. Sir Winston Churchill died 50 years ago today, and, the first commoner since the Duke of Wellington, to receive the honour, lay in state in the Great Hall at Westminster.

At the time, I was working for Mobil Shipping Company at the now demolished Pill Box building between Waterloo Station and Westminster Bridge. I watched a queue of 300,000 people snaking across the bridge and The Embankment on their way to pay their respects to the man who had so eloquently rallied their spirits during the war that had ended just twenty years earlier. Johnson reminds us that there was so much more to Winston than that, but I won’t add to the billions more words that are bound to be produced in the days to come.

During my lunch hour, I nipped out with my totally non-automatic Kodak Retinette 1b camera, and photographed those people braving the cold winter’s day. I first published a selection of these with my post of 22nd May 2012, but I think it fitting to repeat them today. Note that the Union Flag flies at half mast over the Houses of Parliament.

For our dinner this evening Jackie coated chicken thighs in their skins with piri-piri seasoning and roasted them in the oven. Retaining the skins produces enough fat to obviate the need for oil. This was accompanied by her usual savoury rice without egg. We had the chickens after all.

The surprise addition was the melange of sautéed red cabbage and other vegetables. Into the finely sliced cabbage, onions, and green beans, which were stir fried, carrots were added quite late on in order that they should retain their original colour. When everything was soft enough a splash of vinegar was added, a lid was applied the saucepan and the whole steamed on a low heat for no more than ten minutes. I recommend it. Between us we finished the Pedro Jimenez white wine.

This is my 1,000th post since I began my blog on 9th May 2012. Although some entries have been published a day or two late, no dates have been missed.

P.S. The following morning Jackie and I had a discussion about just what is contained in the queue photos. When I last published them Becky had commented on the fashions of the day. Jackie was struck by the number of hats displayed on the heads of both men and women, and the number of fur coats still acceptable then. The one woman walking in the opposite direction on Lambeth Bridge in the first picture would be on her way to the end of the line. It would take her three or four hours to reach the front

A policeman who commented on BBC news may possibly be visible in the third picture. He answered our conundrum about the line of vans seen on the far side of the first image. They were catering facilities provided by the WRVS. Clutched in the arms of a news vendor on the right of photo three are copies of The Times, the front pages occupied by a photograph of the great man.

Clicking on the images produces larger images which helped us examine the details. Maybe you could find more of the information from half a century ago.

The Walking Stick

This morning I wandered round the garden and did a bit of weeding and dead-heading before delving into my colour slide archives to add a few pictures to the ‘posterity’ series.

This is what the Houses of Parliament looked like in August 1964:

Not very different to today, when, on my trips across Westminster Bridge I am inclined to focus elsewhere.

In that same month I took this reflective photograph of Vivien in 18 Bernard Gardens:

In April this sunset across the garden had attracted me:

The following month, clutching tightly onto Michael at his baptism, Auntie Gwen seemed afraid she might drop him:

My sister Jacqueline was more relaxed as she held her son James in August 1965:

Finally, here is another of the photos I took of Jackie on Wimbledon Common in April 1966:

Before heavy shower brought us in later this morning, I lopped off the invasive brambles in the back drive and Jackie helped me to take out the final dead trunk from the snake bark maple; to prop that between two other trees for it to carry a mature clematis Montana from one to the other; and to take out a high branch from the weeping birch that was pushing its way through the maple. This latter operation involved standing on the upper platform of the stepladder and hooking the branch down with a walking stick. I pulled down stick and branch together and Jackie held them while I amputated the limb. Fortunately I didn’t need the walking stick afterwards.

The stick was, however, to come in handy during the post-shower operation. One of the trees supporting the Montana is half dead. Because of its very attractive yellow foliage, we would like to keep it. One complete side of the trunk is dead and eaten by some insect we have not seen. It was also playing host to a great deal of dead Montana that we had heavily pruned earlier in the year. I took out one long, completely dead, upright branch, and we set about extricating the clematis. Most of that was very high up. This is where Jackie brought the walking stick back into play. Even then, the Montana was very resistant, and we failed to remove it all. But at least the tree, which we still haven’t identified, looks a little more healthy now.

This evening, following a recommendation from Giles and Jean, we dined at The Crown inn at Everton. The food was really excellent and the atmosphere homely and friendly, the decor being a good mix of ancient and modern. We both enjoyed our starters – dressed crab salad for me and deep fried brie in a crispy breadcrumb coating for Jackie – and main courses, but had no room for desserts. My main was steak and kidney pudding, and Jackie’s was mushroom pasta. She drank Peroni and I drank Ringwood’s Best. I needed to take a second photograph of my dish after I had cut into what I thought was a neat mound of cabbage. Inside the cabbage leaves were slices of carrot and cubes of turnip. The chips came as standard.

Bags

I began the day with a wander round the garden in the morning light. Jackie has been steadily working away at the creation of her open air gardener’s shed. This is what it looks like at the moment:
As she walked under the weeping birch she came alongside the growing log pile that I will eventually saw up for the wood burning stove.
We have now reached the stage where we have clear views all across the garden. I amused myself by taking a photograph from each of our five seating areas. What you can see depends on the direction your chair is facing, but I satisfied myself with just one in each case. Perhaps I will make a set in the evening light quite soon.
Before driving me to New Milton for the London train, Jackie took us to Ferndene Farm Shop where we bought three large bags of Violet Farm Compost, and deposited them at home.
On the station a couple were waiting for the arrival of our train, ten minutes late, because they had left their bags on it and were hoping to find them. Presumably they had been travelling from London and trusted that their belongings would be transported back after having reached its destination. Another unfortunate young man boarded the train at Winchester, dashed back to the door as the closing beeps were sounding, jumped off, and didn’t make it back. His friends said he had left one of his bags on the platform.
The buddleia has been described as the railway plant. This is because our lines are riddled with it, as seen through the window on the approach to Basingstoke.
The train had lost another ten minutes by the time we reached Waterloo, just allowing me to take my usual walk to Carol’s, along the side of the Thames where the sun glinted on the wavelets, and, in the shade of the embankment wall, the produce of ice cream vendors was being avidly devoured.
After the usual pleasantly stimulating conversation with my friend, I took the customary transport back to New Milton, where my carriage awaited. Jackie drove me home and fed me on a luscious liver casserole, with crisp vegetables and boiled potatoes. She tells me that different stages of the cooking were interspersed with gardening activities, but there was in my meal no trace of privet or any other plant except for the bay leaf which was there by design.

‘Good Haircut’

Yesterday I promised Richard a copy of the photograph of him shovelling shingle. I printed it A3+ size today, and am very pleased with it.
Jackie drove me to Southampton Parkway after lunch. I then took my usual route to Carol’s, involving a train to Waterloo and a walk across Westminster Bridge and down Victoria Street.
On the south side of the River Thames The London Dungeon drew its usual crowds. At the top of the entrance steps stands a barrow loaded with human corpses wrapped in sacking. The occasional hand escaping from its primitive body-bag no longer twitched, unlike those of a visitor anxious to venture inside to feast her eyes on further gruesome spectacles. Perhaps the dead bodies had once entered with rather more trepidation.
Rainclouds gathered above Westminster Bridge and the silhouettes of some of the most photographed buildings in the world.
Flocks of pigeons lazing and foraging in a now much reduced little green at the Victoria Street end of Broadway, suddenly disturbed, periodically took flight and arranged themselves on safe perches in the plane trees above.
The green is Christchurch Gardens which has a history probably unknown to the millions passing by. There is no surviving evidence of either of the two chapels or the Church of Christ Church Broadway which have stood on the site at different times.
A chapel dedicated to St Mary Magdalene had occupied the area then known as Tothill Fields as early as the 13th century. By 1598, according to John Stowe, the building was ‘now wholly ruined’.
A new churchyard of St Margaret’s, known as The New Chapel was consecrated by the Dean of Westminster in December 1626. During the Commonwealth period it was used as a stable by Parliamentary soldiers and as avail for Scots prisoners captured at the Battle of Worcester. Twelve hundred of these prisoners were said to have died and been interred in the fields.
In the 19th century the New Chapel was demolished and replaced by Christ Church Broadway. Less than 100 years later, this in turn was destroyed by German incendiary bombs in the early morning of 17th April 1941.
Sadly, as in many London public spaces, this one now bears a sign telling you what you can’t do in them.
On one corner is situated a tribute to those who suffered in the suffragette movement which fought for votes for women in the early twentieth century. The body of their leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, is buried in Brompton Cemetery. Her gravestone in the form of a celtic cross features in ‘The Magnificent Seven’.
After visiting Carol, I returned to Southampton where Jackie was waiting to drive me home.
Noticing my reflection in the window of the 507 bus to Waterloo as it passed St. Thomas’s Hospital, I was reminded of the keen observation skills of Jackie and Judith Munns in August 2012. I had posted a photograph of the Sigoules boulangerie on an afternoon following a morning visit to the hairdressers there. ‘Good haircut’, Jackie had texted from England. How, I wondered, had she known? The answer was that I was unwittingly reflected in the baker’s window.
On the return train journey, I amused my fellow travellers, most of whom were engrossed in laptops, by commenting that ‘when I commuted everyone read books’. ‘Times have changed’, was a young woman’s smiling reply.
When we arrived home we dined on superb sausage casserole (recipe); green beans; orange carrots; red cabbage with chillies; and yellow swede, potato, and onion mash.

‘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 Banana Skin

I travelled by my usual means to Waterloo this morning, and from there took the Westminster Bridge route to Green Park. There was a long queue on the M27, making my arrival at Southampton Parkway a little late. Obligingly, the train was also tardy, but reached the London terminal on time.

Bright sunshine coursing through the passing trees and the carriage windows caused rapidly flickering strobe lights to dance across the pages of my book. Dull clouds and a biting wind swirled across and over the Thames in significant contrast as I walked across it.

There are about fifteen ticket outlets at Waterloo station where, on arrival, I now buy my return tickets. From half way along the row a shrill shriek of ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ shattered the calm. An otherwise elegant young woman kept up a similarly tongued tirade at the teller. I’m not sure quite what had distressed her, but she demanded the return of a ticket for which she had paid. She momentarily claimed the attention of all those serving behind the other counters. This rather disconcerted people in a hurry to buy their admission to the trains. She disappeared before I had reached the front of the queue.

A figure astride a plinth set high up on the wall of the former County Hall was either giving birth to or supported on the shoulders of a young Hercules.

Near the London Eye a cheery oriental gentleman representing Lion Travel held up a flag which brought his compatriots flocking to him.

Around the corner the London Dungeon was decorated in season. The pumpkins, like the exhibits inside, were probably made of wax.

Gulls swooped down on a glutinous white substance, perhaps emanating from McDonald’s opposite, smeared on the coping of the Embankment wall. When they had sufficiently sated themselves and gummed up their beaks, starlings eagerly scraped up the residue.

The lines William Wordsworth composed on Westminster Bridge have stood the test of time. The picture can be enlarged by clicking on it to facilitate reading this famous work which is often obscured by the sheer volume of visitors passing by.

A painter has begun the task of applying a long-handled roller to boards screening works outside the Houses of Parliament.

In St. James’s Park a young squirrel disguised as a flattened teasel chewed a tourist’s tempting lure.

The window display of the wine merchants Justerini & Brooks in St. James’s Street suggested that, in Iberia and Italy at least, vintners still stop their bottles with corks.

Because he always opens the bottle before I arrive for lunch, I do not know whether the excellent St Emilion Norman served with our roast chicken was blessed with a cork or a screw top. Sainsbury’s apple strudel was to follow.

On the Victoria Line tube en route to Carol’s a pleasantly and persistently smiling young man, reading the Evening Standard whilst plugged into an electronic device, sat next to a fresh banana skin. When an elderly Chinese woman expressed interest in occupying the otherwise empty seat, he picked up the discard; nursed it carefully, whilst still managing to turn the pages of his newspaper; and carried it away when he left the train.

My normal journey from Carol’s to Southampton was uneventful, but poor Jackie, driving to meet me, had a reprise of this morning’s delay, because of an accident on the road ahead.

Sod’s Law

On the train from Southampton to Waterloo, to which Jackie delivered me this morning, an extremely rowdy, already drunken group of young men bearing beer cans and plastic wine glasses, accompanied by very tiny fascinators flickering and wobbling above very weighty women wearing dresses to match, fortunately alighted at Winchester. One of the men rested his shod foot on a window. As they left, two of them didn’t know which way to turn with their unwieldy plastic packing case containing further cans. I wondered how they would fare at Ascot.

I finished reading John S. Morrill’s ‘The Stuarts’ and began Paul Langford’s ‘The Eighteenth Century’ in the Oxford Illustrated History of Britain.

We paused outside Clapham Junction where the embankment was incongruously meadow-like.

The Ascot crowds convening at Waterloo displayed far more elegance and fascination than my earlier companions on the train.

Having previously determined against it, my trip of a couple of days ago demonstrated that whichever way I walked I was not going to escape the global influx, so I took my usual route to Green Park to catch the Jubilee Line train to Neasden, and Norman’s for lunch.

The London Eye attracted its usual long queues.

A little girl riding along the Embankment perched on her father’s shoulders reminded me of Becky’s superbly adapted Fathers’ Day card.

She, too, will not have forgotten that climb up Mount Snowdon. I had walked up and down the Miners’ Track with her on my shoulders. Although I copped out of the last bit to the summit I had walked up this route regarded as the easy one without too much trepidation. That was because we were walking through clouds.

On the way down when they had cleared I realised that there was a sheer drop either side of the narrowest section of the path.

After I’d got past it, my shirt was wringing wet. The only trousers available in the 1970s were that sartorial aberration, flares. This made me think of a glorious episode of ‘Minder’ set in the 1980s when they were no longer de rigueur, and the hapless Arthur Daley, played so well by the marvellous George Cole, bought a bargain box of jeans. The dismay on his face when he opened the container elicited amused delight from Dennis Waterman’s beautifully depicted Terry, and howls of laughter from me. The garments were, of course, flared.

Westminster Bridge was slightly less populated than usual. A carnation (see post of 28th February) had been discarded on the pavement. Further along a vociferously combative middle-aged woman demanded £20 from a reluctant young man on whom she had planted another.

A London taxi had broken down in a most unfortunate spot. The driver alternated between tinkering outside with the engine and revving up the accelerator inside his cab.

Basking on their rocks, St. James’s Park’s pelicans enjoyed the spray from the fountain which cooled them on another sultry day.

Building works had brought single lane traffic to St. James’s Street. One had to weave around stationary taxis to negotiate zebra crossings. As the meters continue to click over whilst the cabs are not able to move, I dread to think what the fares cost.

As I sat down to Norman’s roast pork dinner, I burst out laughing. In response to his query I related a conversation I had had with Jackie last night. While we were enjoying her roast pork dinner she had said: ‘You will have roast pork tomorrow’. ‘Eh?’, said I, ‘How do you know what Norman will give me?’. ‘Sod’s law’, she replied.

This prompted Norman to tell his sod’s law story. ‘When you drop a slice of bread and jam on the floor it always lands jam side down’. ‘Yes……’, said I, sensing there was more to come. ‘Except’, continued my friend, ‘when you are demonstrating sod’s law’. Perfect.

Carta Roja gran reserva 2005 accompanied today’s meal that was completed by summer pudding which he knows is one of my favourites.

I went on to Carol’s and thence back to Southampton by my normal routes, and Jackie drove me back to Minstead.