Friday, November 24/2017

For some reason the smaller the suitcase the more time it takes to pack it. Not really odd maybe, as there is a Chinese puzzle quality to the effort. Last day in London. A good visit, though notably colder than usual. Temperature supposed to be six tomorrow. Time to go. Genie very kindly tells us that almost all her rooms are now let by the week - so let her know as soon as possible when we will be coming back in the spring.

Thursday, November 23/2017

J and I to Embankment where we change Canadian currency to sterling - interestingly at a better rate than the bank would have given us if we'd used a cash point to take it out of our home account. 

Then we separate, he to enjoy central London and I to visit Jean in West Harrow. I leave via Charing Cross Station, a place that always makes me remember Kieran, aged six, observing rough sleepers bedded down in its long foot tunnels, saying nothing as his eyes widened. Charing Cross underground tunnels often have as strong a smell of urine as the streets of central Paris, but it's not bad today. I pass a single empty sleeping bag, then four together, two of them occupied, looking relatively cheerful. The effect is multicoloured (although I'm too discreet - and too decent - to photograph it). There are miscellaneous clothes and bits of bedding as well as magazines and newspapers. Well, everyone needs reading material, and the newspapers probably serve a dual purpose as insulation, and are, in any case, free. The magazines maybe a bit more aspirational - I spot a brightly covered motor car  publication. You don't have to have a home to dream about fast cars.

Wednesday, November 22/2017

Budget day, UK. Have to say that I prefer Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, to most of the rest of the cabinet, but suspect my reasons are more stylistic than political. He's low key, low ego, low drama. Having said which, I frequently disagree. His cancellation of the stamp duty for first time buyers of houses worth under £300,000 will, I suspect, serve mainly to raise the price of houses. There will be beneficiaries, of course, but not necessarily the poor. Not even a particularly partisan position on my part. Similar measures were taken when Alistair Darling was (Labour) chancellor with little effect in terms of making housing more affordable, and of course a substantial loss to the tax payer. 

The British are almost unable to mention first time buyers without referring to "being able to get on the property ladder". Which seems to be a part of the Anglo (Canadian, American, Australian, English - but not Scottish) view of housing as capital asset more than home. Rental is often more cost effective and is much more common in continental Europe, and also in Scotland. 

Sadly, the government's economic growth and debt projections are depressing. Hammond tries arguing that the problems are global, but unfortunately for him the picture is rosier in the rest of the G8 and in the EU.

Tuesday, November 21/2017

Have a list for the day, which we get started on fairly early, as the wifi dies at Starbucks mid-morning. Down Goldhawk Road to buy more corduroy - my favourite fabric and becoming inexplicably difficult to find. Not so difficult this time, as we remember which of the many fabric shops (almost all run by Sikhs) actually had black corduroy last year and start there. So mission accomplished almost instantly, which gives us time for a quick look at Shepherd's Bush Market and a sample of the spring rolls at the busy food stall at the corner. 

Second errand is buying the train tickets for Saturday's run out to Gatwick. So to King's Cross/St Pancras, where we follow the wheelchair route - establishing the location of the lifts for next weekend with the luggage. St Pancras has pianos in the hall, one of which is being played, as usual by someone with talent. Fortunately no chopsticks players here. The girl who sells the tickets says that on Saturday we'll have to go from London Bridge not St Pancras as there will be weekend works. But at London Bridge, surely? No, but she's already on the phone. Yes, yes. That would be Sunday - on Saturday you can go from St Pancras. Which leaves me unsure whether to be pleased that I checked online for weekend planned engineering disruptions - or worried that the girl's new information still seems not quite right, as I'd thought the London Bridge works were longer term than a day. As usual, we'll leave early enough to deal with most eventualities. 

Errands on Kilburn High Road, include buying low dosage aspirins. They're much cheaper at Savers than anywhere else, but oddly enough there is a regulation (everywhere, not just at Savers) preventing the purchase of more than two packets at a time, each packet containing 28 tablets in blister pack. So the winter's supply involves J and I each buying our two packets on more than one occasion, without actually having to pretend we don't know each other.  Does seem odd. Surely anyone attempting suicide could find a more efficient method. Don't know if the blister packs would slow down a determined child, but they would have been a definite deterrent to my mother.

Monday, November 20/2017

First Ania arrives, Jenny's cleaner who has been living with her elderly Auntie Vera. She's Polish and very cheerful, but looking forward to Christmas when she can go back to Poland. Lots of family in Edmonton, she tells us. Then J goes with Doug to inspect the flat he's done up to sell, in Surbiton. Quite impressed. Jenny collects Cody and brings him home before he's picked up for lunch at a friend's. Friend's foster father is a bit late so we pass the time with him demonstrating judo holds and charades. He's bright, and funny, and very busy. So goodbyes until April, and we're off to the train. Not cold, but darkish and on the edge of drizzle.

Sunday, November 19/2017

To Thames Ditton, as we've been invited to dinner while Jenny's brother Andy is visiting. We've never gone there in the dark before and are invited for five,  but sunset is pretty early at this time of year, and London is farther north than Sioux Lookout - though warmer. Andy lives in Cornwall (we visited a few years back) but has been spending quite a bit of time in Cyprus, before and after Sam, their father, died this summer. Good to see him again - he's always interesting to talk to - thoughtful, informed, and low ego. Emma is here too, and we have a happy, leisurely dinner. Lovely of Jenny and Doug, who have quite a bit else on their plate, between grandchildren and Jenny's mum, now in a care home. And Doug doing up a flat to sell, as well as looking after the ones let to students.,

Saturday, November 18/2017

A man at a nearby table at Starbucks leaves behind his copy of The Times, having stayed over two coffees - quite long enough to have read it all. And I'm happy to acquire it, though I probably wouldn't have paid the £1.70 ($2.85 CAD) cover price for the pleasure. 

The Saturday Times has a good weekend section, as well as The Review, with theatre and book reviews as well as several puzzles, which the previous owner has kindly left undone. 

And in one of the book reviews (of Patronising Bastards by Quentin Letts) there is a reminder of the gender neutral loos at the Barbican, encountered by us earlier in the week and actually  labelled "gender-neutral toilet with urinals" and "gender-neutral toilet with cubicles". The ones we visited were in a little frequented subterranean corner and were toilets we remembered from past visits and sought out for their quiet cleanliness. In the event, we just walked in to the loos we had always used in the past, in Js case without actually reading the sign - happily unaware that he might have been sharing the "with urinals" with unexpected mixed company.

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Friday, November 17/2017

To the Saatchi Gallery, one of our regular stops. It's been closed as they set up new exhibitions, but the wait has been worth it. There are a number of pretty shocking displays of contemporary Russian protest art, featuring Pussy Riot and also artists that we're not familiar with. 

The shock effect begins immediately in the first gallery with the work of Pyotr Pavlensky. What we see is photograph and sculpture, but his passion is clearly for performance art. And so we have Carcass, a record of the naked artist wrapped in layers of barbed wire at the seat of the St Petersburg Assembly, intended to represent the individual's position in the legal system, forced to comply as a silent animal. In the next room is the small but horrifying sculpture Fixation commemorating the occasion, on November 10, 2013, when Pavlensky, again naked, nailed his own scrotum to the pavement of Red Square, remaining until police covered him with a white sheet - and then arrested him. Thus the police became unwitting actors in the drama, proving the individual's fixation in the face of police power. 

After this, the Pussy Riot exhibit is both more familiar and, oddly enough, less shocking, featuring mainly film clips (as well as small masked matryoshka dolls behind bars. 

Then back to shock effect - and it's considerable - with Damir Muratov's group photos, highly satirical and sparing no political feelings. 

Even the less compelling works in this show would be central to a lesser exhibition. We finish with a series of wall graffiti posts above television screens showing only "snow", helpfully hand labelled "Art" on a sheet of A4 paper, featuring slogans like "the revolution belongs to you". 

And including a moral challenge from Desmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor". If this seems educational, or even didactic, it is, in an old-fashioned 60's way. There are even handouts labelled "homework" - suggestions for fighting injustice to be read later. 

Stop at the lower ground floor before leaving, in order to use the loo, and are intrigued by one last piece. It's the classic Uncle Sam Wants You picture, but done as a mosaic, every piece cut from an American comic, the background cut outs of words and the figure from comic book pictures. And done so cleverly that it takes a minute to realise what you are looking at!

Thursday, November 16/2017

They're working on the corner next to where we stay. Unspecified sewer operations plus extensive recurbing. Fascinating from the point of view of a Canadian, all four corners are fenced off, while men in high vis vests and digging machines do their thing but road and pedestrian traffic is never impeded. The whole procedure does take a matter of weeks, but no longer than it would do if, Canadian-style, they had closed the road. The fencing is moveable, of course, and is frequently rearranged to suit changing bits of excavation or paving, occasionally more than once in a day. But calm carrying on is indeed what is happening.

Wednesday, November 15/2017

We have tickets for a talk by Dr Ben Broadbent, deputy head of the Bank of England, at the London School of Economics. The talk is free, but they're expecting more people wishing to attend than there will be seats, so they've been allocated randomly. At least that's the theory. It's in the Hong Kong Theatre at Clement House, which is not a very large auditorium, but there are still empty seats when the talk starts, so our both having tickets is down to over optimism on their part, not good luck on ours. The topic is Brexit and Interest Rates, and unfortunately we're rather more interested in the Brexit bit than the interest rates. But still currency exchange is important and this is Mark Carney's 2IC. 

Well, those who didn't apply for tickets may have known something we didn't. The event is an hour, including fifteen minutes for questions, and that's more than enough. The worst is that the man is difficult to hear, and this doesn't seem to be down to the sound system. We're in the second row, probably within thirty feet of him and he is using the Mike, but we probably catch no more than fifty percent of what he says. J has the advantage of being better educated than I in economics, but this advantage is more or less negated by his having worse hearing. Not the first time we've encountered this at the LSE, and not down to old age either. There seem to be quite a lot of people with a great deal of knowledge and no presentation skills at all. In all fairness, Dr Broadbent may not have to present his ideas to an audience very often. But he does engage in a great deal of mumbling, punctuated by muttered asides. Would have been worse if it hadn't been for the natural non-committal reticence of the professional economist, so no great loss. 

I tell J as we leave that I do know a very good pub nearby - just round behind the Courts of Justice, but fail to spark any interest. He simply doesn't regard this as beer drinking weather and the lure of real ale is ineffective.

Tuesday, November

Finally (one hopes) deliver as much corroborative material as possible to our tiny HSBC branch at Charing Cross where we are now on first name terms with the affable Hassan, who probably hopes that his friendly "see you" as we're leaving is inaccurate. Photograph the pedestrian crossing light at Trafalgar Square. We cross when it's green but can't imagine what the code is. Green light for ménage à trois?

Monday, November 13/2017

To the Barbican library for the first time in ages, maybe years. It's so peaceful and civilised, helpful people going about their work with an almost monastic quiet and efficiency. And the VPNs work here, as they have unhappily ceased to do in most public venues. 

So take advantage of the opportunity to check in for the flight to Cyprus Saturday week and download boarding passes. Only five allowed per device, which seems reasonable. When we boarded in Fredericton they were unhappy about two boarding passes on one device, citing Transport Canada. Intended to check this as it seemed unreasonable. What about the passenger accompanied by small children or an elderly blind parent? My baby has dropped his smart phone and my mother can't see hers? 

Make copies of phone bills for UK bank in the continuing interest of proving J's identity and residence, although they say not to use online billing. It is an exact copy, though a downloaded one. They also say full first name, and Bell has used Joe instead of Joseph. On reflection, the only other utility bill we receive is from Sioux Hydro, which does the same. Do I detect an urban bias here? J has lived in the same community for 65 years and doesn't have what HSBC considers proof of residence. Electric bill addressed to Joe, water pumped from lake by us. Heat is wood, delivered in 16 foot lengths without a written bill. It's a different world, although there may be similar arrangements in small communities in the Scottish islands. Driving licence does have full name and address, but they seem only to want it if it's EU. Wonder if Brexit will broaden or narrow the requirements. 

Stop in Kilburn on the way home (which it isn't) to pick up a few things at Aldi. And pass Roses, which, surprisingly on a Monday, is featuring lamb kleftiko. So, unexpected supper stop. Only a couple of tables empty this time, and kleftiko falling succulent lay off the bone as always.

Sunday, November 13/2017

It's cold. Not cool, not chilly, cold. Bitter wind. OK, not as cold as much of Canada, and no snow - though temperatures in much of the UK outside of London will be below zero tonight. Robin Lustig, in his blog on Friday, laments the "real human misery" attendant on a welfare crisis and increasing homelessness, noting "last night, there were eight homeless people shivering beneath a railway bridge close to where I live in north London" whereas "a year ago, there were none". And this morning there is someone lying in a sleeping bag (which doesn't look thick enough) outside Bayswater tube station. A not uncommon sight in central London streets or in the long tunnels leading to Charing Cross tube station, but we've never seen it here before. Add it to the beggars regularly stationed outside Tesco's and McDonalds. The takings don't look very impressive, and the bits of blanket and newspaper seem pretty poor insulation on days like this.

Saturday, November 11/2017

Meet up with Jenny at the National Theatre, an excellent spot for meeting as its lobby is large and quiet and comfortable and you can get coffee - or for that matter something stronger. So we have a good chat and then head down the South Bank to the Tate Modern, which none of us have been to for a while. 

Enter via the Turbine Hall, where there is usually a large, often multi-storey installation. And need there is one now - a huge brightly striped carpet (the colours of British bank notes the sign informs us helpfully) with a large reflective pendulum swinging overhead. Children playing happily on the carpet and beyond it on triple swings. The thought being vaguely philosophical, re grounding through gravity and commerce. Jenny takes the same view of galleries as we do - view a small number of exhibits and leave before over saturation. 

And there are a number of new works to see. The Tower of Babel, for example  tall tower made entirely of electronic sound devices - transistor radios, cassette players, etc. The room is darkened and the sound track too confused to disentangle - mainstream media at its most unclear. 

And then there's a huge canvas by French Communist artist André Fougeron, caricaturing Americanisation as well as French colonialism. Plenty of hits here, from exploitation of the underprivileged to the electric chair, as used in the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. 

Then we're back to the National Theatre. On the other side of the river we spot what we quickly identify as the Lord Mayor's annual procession, bands, Cinderella style golden coach and all. Pretty chilly for outdoor picnicking but we have a nice sandwich lunch inside, and more chat. Pretty quiet lounge except when theatre goers are arriving or leaving. 

Realise quite late in the day that we met up just before the Armistice two minutes of silence. And weren't silent.

Friday, November 10/2017

After stopping at the bank we cross Trafalgar Square to the Canadian High Commission. Cross is not quite the right word for the circumnavigation up past the pavement artists in front of the National Gallery. The square itself is blocked off as preparations are made for the U2 concert on Saturday night. Seven thousand free tickets disappeared within hours. 

Stop at the high commission mainly to lament the changes over the past ten years or so, from the time it was a home away from home for Canadians and you could read a slightly outdated Globe and Mail or join the short queue of backpackers waiting to check their email on one of three rather slow computers. Nice clean loo as well. Now the primary function of those guarding the entrance - who never seem to be Canadian - appears to be keeping the likes of us out. There is still a small gallery and the exhibitions are open to the public, but J's suspicion is that their primary interests are commercial rather than diplomatic. 

This began under Harper of course but sadly doesn't seem to have been reversed by the current administration. In fact quite the opposite. When diplomatic staff were already lamenting the scrapping of diplomacy for commerce and hard nosed confrontation there were still cultural events at Canada House. As ordinary citizens we registered and attended a discussion of multiculturalism and Islam by journalists Doug Saunders and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Even a glass of wine and some civilised conversation first. The man on security detail (ex Greek army) is sympathetic but clearly thinks we haven't kept up with the times. Someone was stabbed just over there he tells us, pointing down the street. You know what it's like now - you read the papers. And just try going to the American embassy - they'll make you stand well back while they point a gun at you. Not sure that times are much more dangerous than they were for citizens on the street, although we can see that terrorist incidents are more frequent and embassies are obvious potential targets. However, not convinced. Soft targets have featured prominently lately, not only because they are less well guarded but because they increase public fear by suggesting people are not safe anywhere. 

Our friendly Greek offers to take our photo (declined), provides us with little Canadian/UK flag pins (albeit described as Canadian/English flags) and points out that we could resort to the embassy in the event that we lost our passports. (Has fortunately never occurred, although many years ago I did wash my jeans with passport in pocket). But he's not really the right person to regret the loss of a legitimate cultural rôle for an embassy.

Thursday, November 9/2017

First visit with Jean this autumn. We were actually in Fredericton at the same time in September/October but ironically getting together here is simpler. Better public transport and fewer other calls on our time. Cool, but not wet. And dark, of course. London considerably north of our "northern" Ontario home, and the end of summer time makes for very early nightfall. As usual we're overly greedy with the Bombay mix before we even reach the meal. Good chat and we're joined by Shanthi, whom we haven't seen for a couple of years now. Inevitable political gossip as International Development minister Priti Patel is being replaced as we speak.

Wednesday, November 8/2017

No complaints, but Starbucks noticeably less busy this stay. Good for us, because desirable corner table usually free, queue not too long, etc. Suspect it's not down to the quality of the coffee - which we like but may not be to everyone's taste - or to complaints about tax avoidance, as other coffee shops in the area don't seem over-full either. Too many coffee venues spreading the custom too thin? Also there seems to be a shortage of the more eccentric customers - those talking to themselves (without benefit of microphone) or opening packets of toast, or using the downstairs seating area as a changing room. An improvement in tone of course, but a bit of a loss in colour.

Tuesday, November 7/2017

Alexander is in London (he lives just south of Cambridge) and collects us, as he has to be in the area of Paddington Station anyway. He's found a restaurant in Notting Hill to try for our now traditional lunch date. It's called The Shed, and is an unprepossessing building well disguised by vines. A young woman is smoking (quite legitimately) in the outside porch where there are a couple of tables and A comments on how nice this is. I have to assure her that both A and J are inhaling deeply before she is relieved to find this is not sarcasm. 

A long unpretentious room with small tables, and a short menu with dishes designed for sharing. The owners, three brothers, have their own farm and vineyard and we have a carafe of their bright, floral tasting white wine as well as choosing one "fast" and one "slow" dish each for the sharing. A salad, battered cauliflower florets with almonds (and a bit of curry heat?), venison ragout, beef sirloin, hake with "sea vegetables", and slip sole, as well as their own thickly cut seeded bread. Portions not large (and not underpriced) but the food is lovely and we're more than satisfied. 

Gives us a chance to catch up as well. Alexander voluble as usual on any number of topics, from British politics to Mendelssohn's period living in Notting Hill (not then a part of London) to the merits of various electric cars. He's been busy still occupied with tuning and transporting instruments, as well as regaining his pilot's licence. Accused of not slowing down, he says that he works as hard as ever when he's working, but works fewer days in a month. Fair enough. He also tells us about burying Flora's ashes next to their baby son, as she had wished, and shows us a photo of the grave stone, beautifully simple and graceful. 

Mobile needs charging by night. So the charged battery with which we arrived lasted almost six days of admittedly light use. Not bad, as it's the original battery in the mobile we bought in Damascus just before the Syrian war.

Monday, November 6/2017

Down to our bank - HSBC Charing Cross branch - who want an update on our profile. Fair enough, as it seems we've had the account for a mildly surprising fifteen years. 

Just off Trafalgar Square, so we take a bus to Camden Town and check out the shops along Camden High Street for future reference. Just our imagination, or is the street becoming slightly seedier? It's never been rich, but there's something a bit depressing about Inverness Street market, where the veg were fresh and the stall owners rough and cheerful in a there-you-go-luv sort of way, being replaced by long queues at Poundland and Lidl, where the prices seem to have risen slightly without the variety or quality of the offerings improving much. So another bus to Kilburn High Road, which still a multicultural energy about it. Once Irish, as the name suggests, it's now a bit of everything, with lots of Middle East and African in the mix, though you can still buy Irish newspapers.

Sunday, November 5/2017

Up before dawn for the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. Can't remember now how many years we've been doing this - several, anyway. It's a rally that celebrates the passing of the Locomotives on the Highway Act in November 1896. Sometimes known as the Red Flag Act, it required that automobile drivers be preceded on the road by a man carrying a red flag in warning. Every time I set the alarm for six o'clock a small part of me thinks that it might rain, we might not really have to be up in the cold darkness. 

But at the first sight or sound of a veteran car  the adrenaline starts. Some cars are trailered in buty some drivers have stayed at hotels on our side of Hyde Park and head out along the Bayswater Road, two and three (sometimes even one) cylinder cars audible before we spot them in the dark. And brave drivers as many of the old cars have no lights at all. One pretty noisy little car we see loses power at each red light along the road and the driver has to pedal furiously until the engine catches when the lights turn green. Probably all right once on the open road, although like many of the entrants not too speedy. Cars are deemed to have completed the run (it's not a race) if they reach Brighton, some sixty miles away, by 4:30 in the afternoon, about a nine hour window. We enter the park while cars are still arriving, but it's a longish walk along the Serpentine where the vehicles are marshalled, admiring as we go, and the first cars are off before we reach the start point. 

A pity in a way, as the lead car is a treasure - an 1893 Peugeot constructed only seven years after the world's first car. There's plenty to feast the eyes on, though, with some 450 cars in the event. They're all pre-1905 and come from as far away as Australia and Argentina. No two alike, and some must barely meet the definition of car, with tiller in place of steering wheel and bare boards construction. 

Many are three wheeled and the passenger, when there is one, sometimes in front of the driver rather than beside or behind him (or in a few cases her). Totally delightful and the participants, many in period dress, are visibly thrilled. A little over an hour from the time the first car leaves at 7:02 until the last is on its way. By this time we're pretty chilled. The sun is up, but we've been standing watching for a long time, so home by tube to put a kettle on.