Notes from London

Once again in London! What more can be there to tell about it?

I know the feeling. Every thing that could possibly have been said, has already been said!

Yet, I did have some new experiences. Reality is supposed to be subjective, so even if everyone else has already written about London, my reality of it will be different and it will be different from the last time I was there 4 weeks ago, since in 4 weeks, I have changed. So bear with me, even if I will understand that you might decide to skip this one and to spend your time better!

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Going to British museum in London reminds me of eating a banana split ice cream at Nirula's in Connaught Place in Delhi. In the end, it was difficult to finish that banana split and the sweetness of it gave me nausea. Every time I finished eating one, I would say "For one month, I am not going to touch any ice-cream".

Going to the British museum is like that. So much to see that in the end, it all gets too much. Entry to the museum is free and there is no prohibition on taking pictures. I especially love the Assyrian section.

But even the new dome covering the central space is so beautiful. And, the christmas lights in the shops in the museum were so beautiful. In the end, my head was bursting with things I had seen and my arm had cramps from the constant clicking that I was doing. I don't think that I will be back there any time too soon.

There was a wonderful new exhibition in the museum about the death rites and death linked mythology from around the world. There were masks in this exhibition from Andaman and Nicobar islands (India), some what similar to the Mau Mau figurines I had seen among the Toraja tribe in South Sulwesi (Indonesia).

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On Saturday afternoon, the meeting finished earlier than the plan. "I want to walk along the bank of Thames", I thought and off I was to the Hammersmith bridge. I had been to a pub around there for a dinner once and it was lovely to sit along the river, sip some beer and chat with friends in the summer. Probably that was not the right kind of memory for deciding about the walking trip in December, but that thought came to me much later!

The Thames path, goes along the river and then at some places, where private buildings block the way, it goes in between houses, waiting for the next point where it can rejoin the river. At one such point, I found myself in Bishop's park with boys/men playing football and American soccer. I like the funny clothes they wear for soccer, with puffed up shoulders and sleeves. I also like the ritual of everyone putting together their heads as the ball is launched. I don't understand the rules of the game but that does not stop me from admiring it!

Then I reached the All Saints church near the river in Fulham. It had lot of old tombs with some interesting tomb stones. Like, "Here lies Susan Parkinson, loving wife of xxx and mother of xxx. xxx, xxx, left for her heavenly abode on 17 August 1759". I like cemetries.

Anyway, I walked and walked and walked. It was lovely. In the end, when my legs were almost giving up, I thought it was prudent to go back.

"I will try to find a short cut for going back to the hotel", I told myself. And, so I walked and walked and walked.

"I won't ask anyone for directions", I had told myself. I often make such rules for myself. However, in the end I had to ask someone for directions, since I seemed to going around in circles. My "short cut" was taking me further away from my hotel, I was told and, it would be better to take a bus or a taxi.

When finally I reached my room, I felt like an old man, in terminal stage of some advanced disease, who seemed to walk like a drunk sailor on a ship in a stormy night.


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By Sunday evening, I had apparently forgotten about my decision to avoid museums for some time, and I was back at the Trafalgar square to look at National Portrait gallery. Like British museum, it is also free but unlike B.M., here you can't click pictures of old masters like Van Gogh, as I discovered when I tried to do so!

Outside, the sky behind the opera house was darkest shade of grey-black, producing a lovely light over Trafalgar square. The statute of a disabled pregnant woman by Mark Quinn in the square is provocative. With countries and societies often insisting on forced sterlisations for the disabled persons and promoting abortions if you think that your child could be disabled, to put such a statue in the main square makes you question some fundamental beliefs, I hope!

The newspapers on Monday were about the big blast in a petrol depot, some 30 miles from London, that had produced a 75 km wide black mushroom cloud. I wonder if that black cloud visible in Trafalgar square was because of it?

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Saw this funny ad about condoms in an underground station, with digital ducks wearing condoms on their head-plumes.

Reminded me of an ad I had once seen in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil about noise pollution and loud music in cars. "Show your virility in the bedroom, not on the streets. People who can't do it in the bedroom, tend to make more noise on the street", that ad said.

So here are some images from this eventful London trip!

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This post was originally written in 2006

Walking through the London streets

(A post from 2007, edited & corrected in 2013)

 

I had the whole afternoon free. The flight to London was half empty.

It was a little strange. Before, there were five flights daily from Bologna to London and now there are just two, and yet there were so many unoccupied seats on the plane. Perhaps it had some thing to do with the cost of the British Pound in comparison to the Euro? Or, since the US dollar is now so cheap, perhaps all those who were going to UK now prefer to go to USA?

Any way, I was in London so let me just talk about that rather than make gloomy predictions about apparent decline of the British economy!

I had a whole afternoon and I decided to walk, starting from the Victoria station and taking Buckingham Palace road that goes behind the palace. It was probably the time of the daily exercise for Her Royal Majesty's horses and ponies, since horse driven carriages were coming out of a side gate, going around the palace and then going back inside from the side gate on the Buckingham Palace road. May be it is someone from the royal family dressing up as Her Majesty's staff and going out in incognito? Knowing the scoop hungry British tabloids, I don't think the British Royalty would try that, but just in case, I decided to click a few pictures.

The guards outside the Buckingham palace, no longer carry those big furry caps made of bear fur. I agree completely that you can't kill and clean the earth of the poor bears just for those caps, but with all the punks and other creative talents in UK, couldn't they design some nice but unusual new cap for these guards? The ones they have now suck big time. Perhaps Her Majesty would read these lines and find a way out?

The park with the small artificial lake outside the Buckingham palace was full of water birds. Most of the time I can hardly tell the difference between ducks, swans, canadian goose, graynecks, etc. but there were some boards there showing the different species with their names. Like the ones in the picture below are called Coots.

As I walked around the Horse Parade ground, it had started to rain. Actually I had checked the "weather in London for next five days" that morning on the BBC meteo site, it had shown a warm sunny day and thus being trusty and gullible, I had not taken any umbrella with me. (Do you think that they would do it deliberately, just to boost the sales of umbrellas? And so, when they are sure that it is not going to rain, they predict heavy rains and thus you go out all covered with umbrellas under your arms and under the sun, feel hot and bothered, and thus boost the sales of London pubs?)

So when it started to rain, I gave up my plans for going towards Downing street, and instead, hurried towards Waterloo place, finding these nursery teachers (?) with all the small kids in triplet prams. Probably they had also checked the weather at the BBC meteo site for planning their picnic?

In the Waterloo place, there was this statue of the Lord John Lawrence, "Governor of Punjab during the sepoy mutiny of 1857" and there are some other statues of the valiant soldiers of Her Majesty's army who had brought the civilization to our poor natives of India and other corners of uncivilized and unknown world. Anyway, there was no time to stop and thank them for their spirit of generosity, brotherhood and unselfish kindness towards mankind and instead, I rushed towards Trafalgar square.

In Trafalgar square, the statue of disabled pregnant woman is gone. In its place is a strange sculpture that made me think of Jewish Hanukkah rising up from an Egyptian pyramid. Perhaps it is the British way of assuring the multi-culturism for the non Christians, who are "offended" by the christmas tree there? Or it is just me feeling cynical?

Anyway, I did not dwell on my nasty thoughts and found refuse from the rain in the Gallery of Modern Art (lovely website they have for exploring their masterpieces through web).

Renoir, Van Gogh, Pierro della Francesca, Seurat, Monet, Cèzanne, Caravaggio, Rubens, ... by the time, I came out the art museum my head was exploding with the beauty of art and my feet were killing me, but it was not raining any more.

It was already dark. I sat down in a bar to drink some beer and then off I was in the underground to Westminister for the second part of the walk. Riverside by the night, that was my objective. The projector above the street outside the acquarium next to Dali museum was projecting pictures from the acquarium in the street. It was strange to stand on the picture and to feel the fishes moving around on my body.

The riverside with the British Airways' London Eye, British Petroleum's Big Ben, MacDonald's British National Theatre, (ok, I am making some of these up but it gives you an idea) etc. were full of twinkling lights dancing in the reflections on the Thames waters (all these sponsorships must have inspired the Indian politicians! I had thought that Medha Patakar was exagerating but according to Outlook, Maharashtra Government is considering "selling" 200 plus km stretch of a river and dam to a private company and Chattisgarh Government has already sold 23 km of another river. I am waiting for the discount sale of parliament seats now.)

Anyway, sorry for the digression, enjoy the pictures of London including some images of the south bank of Thames in the night.

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Note: This post was originally written in 2007

Strange London In My Head

(A post from 2008, edited & corrected in 2013)

I don't remember how many times I have been to London. I think that over the past twenty years, I usually have two or three visits every year, though for a few years, I was going there even more frequently. I also used to think that I knew the city very well. Then a couple of years ago I realised that I knew a kind of virtual London, a London that exists only in the tube maps. For a long long time, travel for work meant just work and I didn't even think of going out to see any thing. For the last few years that I have started to go around and see the places that I visit for work, in London this means travelling by the tube.

So the city I know is the one shown on the tube map. The first time that I tried going out and walking a bit, I was surprised that the city was different from the imagined city in my head. Like the time I walked from Shepherd Bush to Hyde park.

So now every time that I have the opportunity, I want to walk around and discover new areas of London.

This time, I knew that going around was going to be difficult as most of the time was going to busy for work. But my first evening was free. I was on the 12th floor of the hotel and the view outside was wonderful. That showed me that the river Thames was very close. So, even if the sky was overcast with thick dark clouds, I hurriedly left the suitcase in the room and walked towards the Thames.

Unfortunately, as I reached near the river, it strated raining. I just had enough time to take a hurried picture of the river and run back towards hotel!

Below is a view of Ravenscourt metro station from the hotel.

So even if the view from the hotel was wonderful, there was no time to go out and discover the city. And I was forced to stay in the room and watch TV.

It was the time of terminal 5, the new terminal at Heathrow airport. First there was the inauguration. And then there were endless documentaries about the new airport, how big it is, what a wonderful fully automated computer directed bagage handling system it has, etc. There was one show where they explained how increadibly big steel beams weighing hundred of tons were hauled up over a period of 11 months to make the largest free hanging roof in the world. That really made me afraid. I would prefer not to know about hundred tons of steeel haning freely above my head, thankyou. And all those endless details about automated computerised handling systems stressed me know end, making me think of lost bagages and endless hours on telephone trying to dialogue with a machine, like it happens with most of call centres when you want to complain about problem in your telephone or electricity bill.

No thanks again, given a choice, I would prefer to pass thourgh a small airport, where human beings deal with me and my luggage.

I also came accross a TV serial called Torchwood on BBC 2 that surprised me with a gay nude scene. Though the scene probably lasted a couple of seconds only, it did feel a little strange. Our favourite detectives in the TV serials can kiss or make love, if they are a man and a woman but if they are both men, perhaps it would mean that they are not good in their jobs? Actually the sexual preference of a detective doesn't have anything to do with his capacity to kill or fight or whatever, but perhaps it is all the stereotyping that is embeded in our heads that made me feel a little strange. Anyway, I think that it is great that BBC can dare to take such risks and change these stupid stereotypes in our heads and hopefully, also the public attitudes.

One evening we all went out to dinner at Sagar, the south Indian restaurant that makes such wonderful dosas in many cities in India. We went to Sagar on King's road and I was a little disappointed. The aloo papri was bad, paneer dosa was not very good and the dessert too.

However, I did a find a way to explore some new areas of London. On my last day, I did manage to wake up very early in the morning and went out to explore, walking from King's road in Hammersmith to Gunnersbury park metro station, passing through Chiswick.

It was strange to walk through empty streets. It almost didn't look like London without the traffic. Here are a few pictures from that walk.

Finally it was time to leave and the sky at Gatwick airport was wonderfully blue with the airport lights, reflected in the glass windows. And while waiting for my flight, on the TV I saw news about hundreds of persons in the newly inaugurated terminal 5 of Heathrow stuck there, complaining about the fully automated system of bagage that had not functioned properly and they were advising passengers about long delays!

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This post was originally written in 2008

Looking for Karl Marx - A day in London

(A post from 2010, edited & corrected in 2013)

 

When I heard that Karl Marx's grave is in London, I was very surprised. Poor Marx. Wonder, how he feels surrounded by all the testosterone driven city yuppies the world capital of free market and globalisation.

I had reached London on 8th July afternoon. After I finished my meeting in Euston, I decided to take the underground to Archway and walk to highgate London cemetery, to take a look at old friend Marx's grave.

This time, I had decided to ignore the weather predictions on BBC. Everytime, they say it is going to rain and I carry an umbrella with me, I find a sunny London. So this time, it did decide to rain. The way to highgate rises on a steep hill, it is supposed to be the highest spot in London, so soon I was breathless and more than a little wet.

Finally when I did reach the cemetery, I found that it was closed. In spite of all their claims about London being the financial hub of the world, free markets and all, so many places continue to observe the office times, from 10 AM to 5 PM. I guess, even the cemetery workers need to go out and enjoy the long summer evenings and visiters can very well take a leave if they wish to visit their dead.

So after all my efforts, in the end I could just take a picture of the entrance of the cemetery, that has a sign that no videos and pictures can be taken inside. However, the walk back to Archway was downhill and much more easier, and it was not raining anymore.

I took the underground to Leicester square, where I was supposed to change to the Piccadilly line. In spite of the cold and wind, it was too early to go back to the hotel, so I decided to walk around Leicester square. The London rickshaws with Savanna ads painted over them, outside the Leicester underground station, looked kind of cute.

However, like the Highgate cemetery, even in Leicester square, teeming with tourists, the park in the middle of the square was already closed. With the summer and the sunlight till 9 PM, it seems funny that parks are closed when people come out of the offices. In the park, I could see a small black that looked like Charlie Chaplin, so I decided to take a picture of the park with the zoom.

Then, I walked over to the Trafalgar square. The fourth statueless plinth in Trafalgar square is hosting "living sculptures" by Antony Gormley these days. The concept of this initiative is interesting. Starting from 6 July, a new person will get a place for one hour on the plinth to be a living sculpture and persons will keep on changing every day, 24 hours, till October. A total of 2400 persons are expected to participate in this very inclusive art event and anyone can apply through a website. This website also has a live webcam of the plinth.

When I arrived in Trafalgar square, a lady dressed in red was trying to set up a playing card statue, but with strong wind, the cards were refusing to stay in position and some of them flew off the plinth into the safety net and in the square.

While walking around in the square, near one of those statues sprouting water into the fountain, I heard an Indian father tell his young son in Hindi, "Beta dekho, woh baccha kulli kar raha hai" (Son, look that child is gargling).

Yuck! I didn't want to go near the kulli-water anymore.

By that time, there was some commotion near the fourth plinth. It seemed that the next participant who was supposed to go up as a living sculpture, had not arrived. Finally Sandy Nairne, director of National Portrait gallery, went up as a substitute and sat there sketching something.

From Trafalgar square, I walked towards Piccadilly, where as usual, hordes of tourists were sitting around the Mercury statue, that always reminds me of the god of love, Kamdev, from Indian mythology.

Tired from all the walking, finally I decided to go back to the hotel.

On 9th July, I had an early morning meeting with a French-Italian friend, who is married to an Indian. For our breakfast we went to a small Italian place in one of the small streets near Euston. The place had old pictures of Sorrento, but none there spoke any Italian. Perhaps the original Italian place was bought over by someone else?

I had to go to another meeting near Russel square and there was some time for that, I decided to walk, pulling my suitcase trolley behind me.

When we finished with the meeting, I thought that I could spend a couple of hours in the British museum nearby, as they are having different exhibitions and events linked to India under the Indian Summer initiative. However, the guard at the museum told me that my suitcase was too big for the cloakroom and so he couldn't allow me to enter.

Again I walked back to Euston to kill some time and then took the underground to Victoria. Since it was cloudy and windy, so walking was good fun (after a month in the buring 42 degrees of Delhi, my evident joy at clouds and wind is easy to understand, though most of my European friends are a little perplexed by it).

I still had four hours for my flight back to Italy, so decided to walk to Buckingham palace from Victoria station.

The buildings around Victoria station have a mix of old and new architecture. The golden coloured statue on the old Victoria theater looks strange against the ugly looking high rise building, but some other glass buildings made for much better contrast against the old British architecture.

Buckingham palace area was crowded with tourists. It must be weak British pound that has brought back tourists from all over to UK.

Finally it was the time to take the train back to Gatwick airport but I was quite satisfied by my walking initiatives.

There was a time, when I hardly saw anything in the cities I visited for work. I have been to so many countries and cities, where I saw just the airports and the hotels. But I like my new me, the one who decides to walk, to get lost, to talk to people and to get a feel for the people and the cities. It is more tiring and but also so relaxing!

And, I love clicking with my digital camera. So that I may not spend a lot of time walking around as a tourist, but then I can look at the pictures back home and try to see things that I didn't have time to stop and admire.

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This post was originally written in 2010