Politics at the British Museum

I took David -- our visitor David, not my Dave -- to the British Museum yesterday. He's a history buff so I knew he'd appreciate the medieval chess set, the Rosetta Stone and the statuary of bygone kings and emperors, not to mention those terrific Tring Tiles that depict a childhood Jesus killing his playmates (and restoring them to life after a scolding by the Virgin Mary).

We saw a fascinating exhibit of Spanish drawings and prints from the time of Goya, one of my favorite artists. All the artworks were interesting, but the ones by Goya himself reach a whole different level of nightmarish darkness and animation. For many years, until it got too faded, I owned a poster of the Goya painting "El Perro Semihundido" that I bought at the Prado in Madrid.

At one point, while strolling through the galleries, we heard the ominous sound of a large chanting crowd. We emerged into the central court in time to witness a protest against BP, which is sponsoring a show at the museum. People were chanting and marching with a banner that read "BP Out of the Tar Sands," or something like that -- I assume it had to do with the Alberta Tar Sands.

And we had a chat in the cafe with a guy wearing an Obama 2012 sweatshirt. I expected him to be American, but he turned out to be a young Brit who had traveled to Virginia to campaign for Obama. Boy, did that make me feel politically inadequate! We expressed our gratitude.

Last night, Dave made a terrific dinner -- a leg of lamb with Yorkshire pudding. And yesterday morning, before the museum, I was buried in work, doing my weekly substitute reports. Whew!

(Photos: I photographed this ridiculously huge Lenin-esque ad for Michael Bublé near the mall in Shepherd's Bush. I want to like the second photo, with the guy feeding the birds, but in fact I prefer the cleaner look of the one at the top. I don't know anything about Michael Bublé. I couldn't begin to tell you what he sings.)

Portobello Portraits

David and I stayed close to home yesterday, taking a quick walk around the Portobello Road market. I spent the time photographing a few interesting people.

"Say cheese!"

"Well, that turned out alright, even with these stupid hats."

This guy was selling soap bubble wands.

And I loved the light on this woman's face.

While I took these photos I was also lugging a pair of photography books that I bought at the market -- so I was shooting with one hand! That and the low, late-afternoon light are my excuses for any slight blurriness.

Yesterday evening we had Linda and Chris, our neighbors, over for drinks, and then we made our way to dinner at an Italian place nearby that we've wanted to try. The food was good but the staff were a bit surly. We had 6:30 reservations and we had the temerity to show up at 6:25. The nerve!

Misty St. Paul's

I just spent half an hour signing up to license my photos through Getty Images on Flickr -- at Getty's invitation -- and for some reason I can't complete the process. Their system won't accept my forms. Some technical snafu somewhere, I suppose, but not an auspicious way to start the day at 6:30 a.m.

David and I went to Borough Market yesterday to meet with his friend Trish, a Scottish lass who moved back here from the states several years ago. We were supposed to meet "at the entrance to Borough Market across from the tube station," but as anyone who's been to Borough Market knows, there are about 12 entrances, all plausibly across from the tube station. Somehow we connected after some confusion. We grabbed lunch -- a halloumi veggie burger for me -- and then walked along the river to the Tate Modern. We stopped in for coffee and a quick wander through the permanent collection, just long enough to check in with Brancusi's sleek fish.

We then walked through the misty, chilly afternoon across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's, in order to catch the tube and join Dave at school in St. John's Wood. We grabbed dinner at a pub and then went to see a student production of "Up the Down Staircase," a somewhat retro play about the difficulties and pleasures of teaching in a New York City school in the 1960s. (I read the book years and years ago -- something I picked up at a thrift sale somewhere.) Kind of a funny play to produce with a student group, involving as it does a bunch of rebellious students, but of course order and perseverance triumph in the end.

Now I'm going to go try that Getty form on another computer and see if I can make it work this time. Ah, technology...

Westminster Abbey and Quiz Night

My friend David did arrive from New Jersey as planned on Wednesday night. I retrieved him at Heathrow and brought him back to our flat via tube. It was funny to walk with him through Notting Hill, because he and I visited the Portobello Road market together back in 2003 when we visited London. I never imagined at the time I'd be living in that very neighborhood ten years later!

Yesterday we went to Westminster Abbey, which David, a history buff, has long wanted to visit. I actually went inside this time, since otherwise David would have been on his own, and I must admit it was fascinating. I hadn't been in several years and we spent about five hours there, slowly making our way around the Abbey and having lunch in the adjacent cafe.

Of course amidst all the history and grandeur I couldn't resist this photo of an incongruous, rusty rubbish skip sitting on the grounds.

Photography is prohibited in most of the Abbey, so I couldn't take photos of the interior -- I assume because it's still a functioning church. In fact we saw a service in progress and heard the organ, and as I sat in the cloisters (above) in the evening I heard the boys' choir practicing in one of the adjacent rooms.

There's so much to see inside, like the tombs of Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I, various Plantagenet kings, and dozens of other noblemen and women with incredibly elaborate vaults and monuments. There's the famous Poets' Corner, with memorials to the likes of Shakespeare, Browning, Coleridge, Dryden, T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, and even the grave of Geoffrey Chaucer. (Some of the writers, although memorialized in the Abbey, are actually buried elsewhere. Shakespeare is in Stratford-upon-Avon, for example.)

There's also the Coronation Chair, a very uncomfortable-looking medieval piece of furniture still used in coronation ceremonies for British monarchs.

We emerged from the Abbey in the twilight, and headed back home...

...in time to meet up with Dave and go to a nearby pub for Quiz Night! Yes, we finally went. So here's how Quiz Night works, at least at The Porchester: A quiz master distributes a paper answer sheet to all the participants, who each pay £1 to enter. She then reads each question aloud with a microphone, and participants, working in self-defined teams, write down their answers. The teams then trade papers and score each other as she reads out the correct responses.

It's not entirely equitable, because for example our team had three people, while some had seven or eight. And we didn't do that well, partly because some particularly English things we just didn't know.

For example: "Which board game takes its name from the Latin for 'I Play'?" (I hadn't the foggiest idea, but it's Ludo -- which Americans call Parcheesi.) How about, "Author Richmal Crompton was born on this date in 1890. Which series of books did she write?" (Who the hell is Richmal Crompton? Well, it turns out she wrote a series called "Just William," and I've never heard of them!)

It was a fun night, but I kept getting calls for substitute teachers through the entire evening, so I had to keep ducking outside with my phone. The other teams would probably have accused us of cheating if we weren't losing!

Butterfly!

Our pupating caterpillar suddenly emerged from his cocoon yesterday morning -- a greenish, fluffy-bodied butterfly.

I would be lying if I claimed to be awed by its beauty. But still, when you think about how it looked just a few weeks ago -- and how quickly it transformed -- well, it's pretty incredible.

It sat on its amaryllis leaf for several hours, probably just drying out. As you can see, it left a strange little puddle of liquid on the windowsill -- "butterfly afterbirth," as Dave called it. Then, in mid-afternoon, I found that it had moved over farther along the window ledge. Taking that as my cue, I opened the window, grabbed it gently by the wings, and set it loose outside.

It fluttered away over the rooftops of the buildings across Westbourne Grove, and I watched it as long as I could, tiny and white and looking something like a blowing leaf in the sunshine.

It's not terribly cold right now -- in the 50s during the day and 40s at night. Maybe Mr. Cabbage White will survive a short time out there in the wild. And maybe not. At any rate, I'm glad nature is taking its course without any involvement from me, and I'm glad he got to fly, even for a brief time.

Modern Art

My friend David arrives today for a weeklong visit from the states. Woo hoo! I'm schlepping out to Heathrow this evening to collect him and bring him back to our humble flat. I'm sure he has a full roster of things he wants to do. Probably lots of museums, which will be great -- my Dave isn't a museum guy so I usually have to go by myself.

Now may be the time to catch up with some intriguing exhibits, like the Tate Modern's newest, which looks really interesting. When I was in my 20s I had a big framed poster of the David Hockney painting, "A Bigger Splash," that lends its name to the show. I think I've already seen the painting in person -- maybe at the Tate, which apparently owns it -- but I'd love to see it again.

Of course, David isn't a fan of modern art, so maybe we won't see that particular show. It's just at the top of my own personal wish list. David is a fan of Leonardo da Vinci and other Italian Renaissance painters of his ilk. I guess I could manage that too.

Yesterday I figured I better get in one last photo wander (although I'll certainly take my camera when I'm out and about with David), so I took a long walk through Kensington and Chelsea all the way to the Thames, and then back up to Sloane Square, where I caught to the tube home. Got good shots, like the one above -- although I really need to learn how to use the manual settings on my camera so I can freeze people without blurring them. I like the blurry effect, the display of motion. But I do it all the time and I suppose it might seem a little amateurish, an obvious indication that I don't entirely know how to control my camera.

Have you seen these people who want to secede from the union because Obama won the presidency? It cracks me up. Go! Please!

Tesco-ization

Yesterday I walked past The North Pole pub on the wonderfully named North Pole Road, and -- it's not a pub anymore. It's closed.

Apparently this happened a couple of months ago. I'd never been to The North Pole -- it's not very close to our flat, and since I only occasionally walk through that neighborhood in North Kensington, I didn't know it had closed. Yesterday the spray-painted protests against Tesco caught my eye, though, so I took some photos and did some research on what it all means.

Turns out grocery giant Tesco intends to open a Tesco Express store in the space. This has prompted protests by local residents who are afraid other neighborhood shops will be driven under by the presence of the behemoth.

Meanwhile, the building's owners have sealed it up with sheet metal to keep out squatters, who have taken to occupying dead pubs in other parts of London.

People always associate pubs with England, and vice versa, but the sad fact is that many, many pubs are closing. The reasons are myriad -- escalating real estate values and corresponding rents, demographic and social changes, and a sharp reduction in alcohol purchases for consumption outside the home (a 44 percent drop since 2001, according to this report). This "pubageddon" has been going on for years.

In just the year and a half that I've lived in England, I've seen several pubs close. The Stinging Nettle, I noticed the other day, has become a Costa coffee shop. Crockers Folly in Maida Vale was boarded up the first time I saw it, as was The Prince of Wales, between Notting Hill and Holland Park. The Cowshed was already closed when we moved here; it has since been torn down.

I hate to see it happen, but I understand why it's happening. Even Dave and I, who like a pint now and then, only go to pubs once every few weeks. I'm more likely to go to Costa, I confess! People just don't drink as much or as often, and when they do, they're likely to do it at home in front of the television. (I have been trying to get Dave to go to Quiz Night on Thursdays at one of our locals, but getting Dave out of the house on a school night is always, understandably, a challenge. We haven't made it to Quiz Night yet.)

Even reportedly prosperous pubs are threatened because their often historic buildings are so much more valuable as residential real estate.

The world changes, you know? But still -- it's too bad. I hate to see everything become blank and bland and fluorescent. If only I could strike the right balance between patronizing my local pubs and protecting my liver!