Down to Charing Cross to do the banking. Our money order should take between six days and six weeks to actually appear in the account. Do we get a vote on bankers' bonuses?
Next stop should be Canada House on Trafalgar Square for a quick email check. But it's boarded up and closed for renovations. Probably not a permanent cutback though, as it seems to exist mainly for business people and not the plebs. So on to the third item on the list - tracking down the location for tonight's lecture at the London School of Economics. Good thing too, as the school sprawls across a number of lanes and the building we want is not on Houghton, as advertised, but on the corner of Sardinia and King.
By this time we're not far from a William Morris exhibition on Temple Place. Two Temple Place is considerably more than a building housing works by Morris. It's a tribute to the aesthetic movement and Morris's belief that people should live surrounded by beauty. And beautiful the house is, with elaborately carved wood on benches, ceilings and staircases - the main staircase incorporating two-foot high carvings of figures from The Three Musketeers. there are also beautiful tapestries designed by Morris and Burne-Jones, several of them illustrating The Romance of the Rose, as well as stained glass panels on walls and skylights and elaborate mantelpieces and fireplaces. At one point the house belonged to Lord Astor, but it has long been held by a trust. There are quite a few viewers, including small groups of children aged about eight, intently making copies of some of the works.
Back in Bayswater we visit the Paddington library to take advantage of magazines (J) and wifi (me). A quietly busy place with plenty of serious students. Then back to the LSE for the lecture on the recent Arab uprisings. It's an hour's lecture by Dr. John Chalcraft, held in a very full and hot room. J is disappointed in its content - long on theory and short on specific current information. He's right, but I'm pleased with the slant, and some of the comments are interesting. For example, MI 6's advice re Libya, ignored by David Cameron, was to stick with the devil he knew. And the cheers with which Egyptians greeted the army were not simply politically discreet - the Egyptians genuinely believed (and correctly it seems) that the soldiers were their brothers. But so many unanswered questions. Why is Bahrain different, and who are the Libyan rebels? And, and..? J is probably right - this is a lecture the speaker has given before.
Next stop should be Canada House on Trafalgar Square for a quick email check. But it's boarded up and closed for renovations. Probably not a permanent cutback though, as it seems to exist mainly for business people and not the plebs. So on to the third item on the list - tracking down the location for tonight's lecture at the London School of Economics. Good thing too, as the school sprawls across a number of lanes and the building we want is not on Houghton, as advertised, but on the corner of Sardinia and King.
By this time we're not far from a William Morris exhibition on Temple Place. Two Temple Place is considerably more than a building housing works by Morris. It's a tribute to the aesthetic movement and Morris's belief that people should live surrounded by beauty. And beautiful the house is, with elaborately carved wood on benches, ceilings and staircases - the main staircase incorporating two-foot high carvings of figures from The Three Musketeers. there are also beautiful tapestries designed by Morris and Burne-Jones, several of them illustrating The Romance of the Rose, as well as stained glass panels on walls and skylights and elaborate mantelpieces and fireplaces. At one point the house belonged to Lord Astor, but it has long been held by a trust. There are quite a few viewers, including small groups of children aged about eight, intently making copies of some of the works.
Back in Bayswater we visit the Paddington library to take advantage of magazines (J) and wifi (me). A quietly busy place with plenty of serious students. Then back to the LSE for the lecture on the recent Arab uprisings. It's an hour's lecture by Dr. John Chalcraft, held in a very full and hot room. J is disappointed in its content - long on theory and short on specific current information. He's right, but I'm pleased with the slant, and some of the comments are interesting. For example, MI 6's advice re Libya, ignored by David Cameron, was to stick with the devil he knew. And the cheers with which Egyptians greeted the army were not simply politically discreet - the Egyptians genuinely believed (and correctly it seems) that the soldiers were their brothers. But so many unanswered questions. Why is Bahrain different, and who are the Libyan rebels? And, and..? J is probably right - this is a lecture the speaker has given before.
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