The morning begins with the race. As it's Asian, we're much luckier than North Americans. Nine a.m. here is 3 a.m. Central Daylight. Plenty of passing room on the track but no one passes young Sebastian Vettel.
In the afternoon we decide to walk King's Road, Chelsea, home of all kinds of creative ferment in the sixties. Tube to Sloan Square - and wonder which hotel it was where Oscar Wilde was arrested. We're right by the Saatchi Gallery, so stop. It's always an interesting visit, and today is no exception. Fascinating exhibit by Tessa Farmer. A large rectangular glass container holding a number of miniature sculptures. The figures are less than a centimetre high and made of "dessicated insect remains, dried plant roots and other organic ephemera" with real insect wings. Fairies, perhaps, but dark fairies indulging in a "microscopic apocalypse." Quite amazing. http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tessa_farmer.htm
A summery walk down King`s Road, but sadly the repairs to The World`s End Distillery Pub are not quite finished. J finds a man having a smoke in a back doorway and inquires. It will reopen April 18. So it's still in store. Former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson, interviewed soon after his appointment to cabinet, suggests that his recent appointment to a high cabinet position didn't quite live up to his youth on King's Road, Chelsea:
I went to school on the King’s Road, Chelsea, in the Sixties. We used to sit at lunchtime outside the World’s End pub because that’s where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards drank. It was just a buzz, a real buzz, a really exciting time. I’ve never [recaptured] the excitement of playing in a band. Nothing has re-created that for me and I did it when I was really young, I was playing in pubs I was too young to drink in. [New Statesman interview]
So home by bus, one that crosses through Kensington and Notting Hill to Kilburn.
So home by bus, one that crosses through Kensington and Notting Hill to Kilburn.