Ice on the Pond

It was really cold yesterday. I went over to Kensington Church Walk to get Dave's good kitchen knife sharpened, and took a detour through Holland Park on the way home. The ponds in the park were iced over, and virtually no one was out. I saw a few lone individuals sitting bundled up in the cafe or on benches, or wandering along the leaf-strewn paths through the woods.

It seemed to match the mood of the wintry day that virtually everyone I saw was solitary.

The glorious peacocks in the Japanese garden seemed utterly unfazed, though. I disturbed the one above in the middle of a long and arduous personal grooming session. It's hard to look good, I tell you.

You can see how people might have trouble believing in evolution. Look at that bird. Could that really happen through natural selection and hybridizing? That little spray of perfect feathers on his head, those big turquoise eyes on his long sparkling tail? Really?

I mean, I believe it. I do. It's just amazing.

These magpies were taking a noisy bath in an unfrozen corner of one of the ponds. They seemed to be doing a dance with each other. I couldn't tell whether they were arguing or being amorous. It seems awfully early in the season for amorousness.

Anyway, only a few hours after I got back home the woman from the knife shop called to tell me Dave's knife was ready. I couldn't face going back again for it yesterday, so I'll go get it this morning. I think today is going to be a bit warmer.

I've been making progress in "Vanity Fair." I've set a goal of 50 pages a day, and for the last few days I've been hitting my mark. Last night, while Dave was away at his final concert of the season, I watched the '50s British espionage movie "The 39 Steps," which I liked even though some of it was patently ridiculous. I guess that's usually the way with spy movies, isn't it?

Holidays and Hedgehogs

I am a believer in keeping Christmas simple -- and this year I have gone to extremes in that regard. Here in London, our Christmas is about as simple as the wall above. (I photographed it Sunday in the South London neighborhood of Brockley, purely because of its Christmasey coloring.)

As I've already said, we decided against a tree, since we're flying to Tampa on the 22nd. Having a tree seems pointless. I haven't even tried to do anything fancy with wreaths or boughs of greenery. I learned my lesson last year.

In fact, this is the extent of my decorating:

I found that ornament on the street, brought it home and hung it from our living room cabinet. There you have it -- Christmas!

I've already given Dave his present, an iPad, because he needed a new computer so badly that I thought early gift-giving was in order. I've also bought some very basic, inexpensive gifts for our families. We have a few holiday gatherings to attend, which will be fun. And that's about it!

Instead of focusing on Christmas, I prefer to think about oddball trivia:

-- I've mentioned the British TV show "Embarrassing Bodies," in which doctors treat all sorts of medical maladies. Yesterday they happened to mention the largest kidney stone ever measured: 17 centimeters across! They described it as "the size of a small hedgehog," which cracked me up. (So far in life I have been mercifully spared a kidney stone.)

-- I am being peppered with Internet spam, both in blog comments (which Blogger screens quite effectively) and in e-mail. Yesterday I got a spam e-mail with the curious subject line, "Parrotnose invites you to see her private vids." Ummmm...no thanks.

Portobello People

I took my camera out on Portobello Road yesterday and walked up and down a few times, stalking the interesting characters. This lady, for example, was quite stylish with her heeled boots, up-do and leopard bag. Faux leopard is all the rage these days, isn't it? I see it everywhere.

This woman sort of had a Christmas-colored theme.

I wouldn't say I got riveting photos. It was so cold that nobody was really hanging out and doing anything outdoors -- they were just hustling along, trying to get inside again.

Except this guy, standing outside a pub. I think he was insulated by more than his big furry hat. Chemically insulated, you might say. His hat did get me paying attention to people's headgear, though.

When I got back to the apartment, my hands were so cold I could barely feel them. I ran them under warm water, which initially felt good and then became incredibly painful. I need some of those fingerless gloves! (I think I've said that before.)

This woman was selling used clothing. Brrrrr! Now that looks like a cold job.

I also spent part of yesterday trying to make some headway in "Vanity Fair." I'm only on page 89, which means I have roughly 720 pages to go! It is not a small book. It's interesting -- I just need to focus and spend some time on it.

Last night I watched "Blithe Spirit," David Lean's 1945 movie version of Noel Coward's play, with Rex Harrison. It was great, though like all Noel Coward plays, it was clever to the point of glibness. No one has any emotional depth. I suspect Coward would have scoffed at emotional depth. He was much more interested in martinis.

Barking Mad

I read an article yesterday in which a conservative member of the British Parliament spoke out against "barking mad" government plans to allow churches to perform gay marriages. According to the article, the MP said "most parents would prefer their children not to be gay."

It was an interesting article for a couple of reasons. This guy said he does support full equality with married couples in civic ceremonies, so that's something. But then he raised the same old bugaboo that conservatives in the states bring up when arguing against gay marriage -- that it would be taught in schools.

I don't doubt that he's right about parents. If given a choice, I suspect most would rather not have gay children. Even in today's improving climate, growing up gay is no picnic, and parents wouldn't choose that difficult path.

But what's the link between allowing gay marriage and having gay kids? Is he saying that a more tolerant society will encourage kids to come out? That might be true, but the alternative is to have them stay in the closet and be miserable. It's not like they would otherwise be straight.

His attitude illustrates the bizarre conservative idea -- apparently prevalent in some circles here as well as the states -- that being gay is a choice. I've got news for this guy. Parents who have gay kids will have them regardless of whether marriage is available. Marriage might just make them happier!

In commemoration of these bananas lawmakers, here's another banana sticker for the online collection. Seems like all our English bananas come from Costa Rica. In the states I think they came from Colombia -- but maybe that was just back in the old days, before the rise of the coca plantations!

(Photo: A tile on a pub in Crystal Palace. The pub is closed and boarded up, and I hope the building is preserved. The tile walls are incredible.)

Winter Concert

People are so strange. "Hey, I have an idea. Let's combine our ironing business (?) with a party supply store!"

Doesn't it look unbearably steamy in there?

Yesterday was the big holiday concert for the music department at school. I went, as usual, and as usual it was interesting to finally hear the students play the pieces Dave has been talking about for weeks. This year's concert was a bit more of a challenge because it got moved up several weeks on the school calendar -- the students lost three or four weeks of rehearsal time. But they did a good job anyway, tackling some serious music including Handel, Mozart and Shostakovich.

It also gave all the music department teachers (and me) a chance to get together for a pub outing afterwards, which was fun. Not as fun as getting a tattoo at Tattoo Tec, maybe, but you can't have everything.

Yesterday morning was a day of catching up -- on sub reports and payments, on vacuuming, on random household tasks. And today is a teacher planning day at school, so the students aren't there and I haven't had to find any subs. Day off! Woo hoo!

Jurassic Park

There are dinosaurs in London -- and I don't mean of the political or social variety. Actual, imitation dinosaurs.

Yesterday I met up with erstwhile bloggers Sally and Liz, as well as Liz's husband Andy, for a walk around Crystal Palace, a large park and neighborhood in far south London. For me, getting down there involved a lengthy tube and train ride -- as you can see below, we were a long way from the city center.

We started our day with a light lunch at a pub, then set out to explore the neighborhood. Crystal Palace is so named because it was the home of the Crystal Palace, the Victorian-era glass pavilion that was originally a highlight of London's Great Exhibition of 1851. It first stood in Hyde Park, but a few years later was relocated to south London, where it became the centerpiece of a large public park until it was destroyed by fire in 1936. (It was made of glass and metal, so one wonders what there was to burn -- but apparently it was full of combustibles.)

Today, Crystal Palace park has a large athletic facility where we saw these guys watching a game of field hockey. The guy with the plaid shorts, pink shirt and orange socks is definitely cultivating a look.

The shadows are terrific at this time of year -- but the downside is that the sun is so low, it's in my lens all the time.

While we were walking through this part of the park, some guy ran past on the telephone, loudly exclaiming to someone (police?) that his son had been mugged. Turns out a couple of kids stole another kid's phone. We found the phone cover on the ground and pointed it out to the mother, who like the father was rampaging through the area trying to find the offenders. They were both so angry we all decided it might be better for everyone if the offenders weren't found.

But back to the dinosaurs. They were originally built in Crystal Palace park in 1854, the first dinosaur sculptures in the world. They are historically protected structures and were refurbished about ten years ago. You can't touch them -- they're on an island in the middle of a murky, prehistoric-looking pond.

They're pretty great, even though they look nothing like any specific dinosaur I know.

We left Crystal Palace Park as the sun set and went to Liz's house, where we enjoyed a terrific pork dinner prepared by Andy. Then I began the long trek back to Notting Hill and Dave, who couldn't join us because he's in the middle of holiday concert season. (After dealing with middle- and high-school kids all day, he wouldn't be fazed by even the fiercest dinosaurs.)

Adventures in British Dentistry, Part 3

As I expected, my photo book proposal was rejected. Here's the editor's sobering and slightly rambling verdict on my submission:

"While it's always great to take a look at the work of an avid image maker such as yourself, the fact is that there is an abundance of work out in the world that has shots of shop fronts, street signs and what I call the 'fun and the found' in the urban environment. The commercial prospects, from the point of view of a publisher such as (this particular company), of books based on those visual themes is simply too challenging for us to consider taking such books on. For those reasons, and with regret, I will not be taking the opportunity to pursue your proposal further. My own personal opinion is that such books are an entirely different proposition using a self-publishing model, such as the one you are already using as the work will be seen and find an audience that follows you. I urge you to continue in that vein."

Perhaps he's unfamiliar with "The Elements of Style" and its emphasis on economy of language.

Bitchy sour-grapes crankiness aside, I appreciate that he was nice about it. And as several of my readers reminded me the other day, I'm really shooting pictures because it's fun. I can't lose sight of that. Life goes on!

In other news, my gold dental inlay fell out again. You may remember I dealt with this back at the beginning of September. This time, because it happened on a weeknight (while I was eating salmon, hardly a dentally challenging food), I was able to simply call the dentist across the street and get an emergency appointment to have it reinstalled. I did have to pay a whopping £17, but I'm fine with that. I think this guy used more cement than the last dentist, which may be a good thing, although the filling doesn't seem to fit quite as well -- perhaps because there's more cement. I don't care. I just want it to stay in.

(Photo: Mayfair, last week.)