Saturday, April 20/2019

Near record setting temperatures. That is, about 25 in the shade and much hotter in the sun. As the weather persons are pleased to note those who stayed home for the long weekend are enjoying warmer weather than many who headed to the Mediterranean. Certainly warmer than Cyprus. It won’t last but the crowds are delighting in it. Trafalgar Square has a concert as a combined Easter and St George’s Day celebration, though St George’s Day isn’t actually until Tuesday. We sit on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields and watch for a bit, but it gets too hot in the full sun.

Friday, April 19/2019

Another stunning day, sunny and warm - in the sun, hot. Bit of transport disruption, between the usual long weekend maintenance and upgrading and the Extinction Rebellion occupying roadways. But not difficult to take the tube to Greenwich. And we’re not the only ones with the good idea - Greenwich is elbow to elbow, or at least the streets and markets are. The park is lovely and green and we join the people sitting on the grass where there’s not only shade from the trees but a welcome breeze from the river. A reminder that London is over a quarter green space, with both a number of huge parks with roaming room and hundreds of tiny ones. It’s not a city where you ever feel hemmed in by concrete. Lots of families here today too. Don’t know if it’s only a weekend or holiday thing, but we do see a woman dressed as a Tudor era queen, and later have a conversation with a man in period naval dress.  

We do go to the Maritime Museum. A striking collection of ship figureheads is attracting photographers. And we look in on a display about the Battle of Jutland. It’s extremely well done - a fifteen minute film combining paintings, photographs, diagrams and narrative in relating a complex series of 1916 sea battles that resulted in over eight thousand deaths. And I have the advantage, not shared by J, of suspense, having too little knowledge of WW I military action to know how most individuals encounters turned out. Side trip to the loo at the end of our visit takes us past a stained glass window commemorating several First War battles.

Thursday, April 18/2019

Had originally planned to visit Jean in West Harrow this afternoon, but she was not feeling well and called it off. She’s due for surgery next week and trying to get rid of any lingering illness so that it won’t be postponed. 

So downtown. Our route not disrupted by the Extinction Rebellion - not that we disagree with the cause- and we walk down Charing Cross Road in the warm sun. Haven’t been to Leicester Square in a long time and this is a lovely day for people watching. Probably few of them local, although people from other parts of the UK may be having a long weekend in London. Certainly there are a lot of families as people enjoy Easter holidays sightseeing and listening to buskers. Remember singing “goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square” as kids in elementary school with no clue where these places might be, or where Tipperary was for that matter. 

Stop in at the little French Catholic Church, Notre Dame de France just off Leicester Square. It’s draped in purple for Holy Thursday and there are, as often, a few people in there praying. Well, some of them are presumably praying. There are also three men lying full length on benches across the back of the church, one of whom is gently snoring. This leads me to look a little more closely at some of the kneeling people - heads buried in their arms, faces obscured - and note that one man has removed his shoes. More comfortable maybe, though it is a religious custom elsewhere. Home through the streets of Chinatown, noting likely places for another day. See that there is still a Mr Wu buffet establishment and take a look in the window to determine whether most dishes are still primarily onion. Disproportionately, yes.

Wednesday, April 17/2019

The world Extinction Rebellion has hit London along with the rest of the world. Had thought of going to Greenwich today but it seems protesters have been gluing themselves to the carriages on Dockland Light Railway trains, which seems pretty likely to cause significant delays. In any case the nearest protest point is Marble Arch, which happens, conveniently, to be the one place that the police have agreed to allow the demonstrators to block the road.  

The road is indeed blocked but there is a whole encampment extending into Hyde Park - people and banners and dozens and dozens of tents. Interestingly, we are both instantly reminded of Tahrir Square in Cairo, scene of the anti-Mubarek protests in the ill-fated Egyptian spring in 2011-2012. It’s the little tents and the mixture of energy and existential threat.  

And the raised stricken figure that is reminiscent of the hanged effigy at Tahrir. This is a more cheerful gathering, though, despite the seriousness of the cause. It’s a sunny day and shirt sleeve ( or in some cases bikini) weather. There are babies and children in the crowd and a band playing and a bit of a holiday atmosphere amidst the apocalyptic banners. And there are cops, but not Cairo’s ominous line of waiting ambulances.

The welcome heat and sun are a reminder that we’re pretty near The Swan, a pub I’ve been promising us a drink at for a few years now. It’s not a pub that’s likely to be anyone’s local but it does have history. Marble Arch is the location of the historic Tyburn gallows and this was, 300 years ago, the nearest drinking establishment and, reputedly, the place where some of the condemned had their last drink. Appropriate, in a way, that the Extinction Rebellion should be at the site of a gallows.

Tuesday, April 16/2019

Every English newspaper has a front page today featuring the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Anti-European sentiments, it seems, forgotten. Although the dramatic visuals are captivating. A variant on if it bleeds it leads. A tragedy we can all agree on. Though not the online community, some of whom are enraged that there is sympathy backed up by massive donations for the rebuilding of a church but not for a solution to France’s social problems. Really the old question of whether there should be support for the arts in a world in which children die of hunger.  (Sparks fill the air as Paris Fire brigade members spray water to extinguish flames as the Notre Dame Cathedral burns in Paris, France, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer)

And much closer to home there are the road works by Bayswater Station. Not so much roadworks as sidewalk construction (though in Britspeak sidewalk is known as pavement). The construction here is interesting because it is so extensive, and when it is finished the sidewalks will be much wider than the road. This is something that the British often do to slow traffic in heavily pedestrian areas. Far more effective than posted slow speeds or heavy fines. Narrowing the road, or alternatively putting in speed bumps (known as sleeping policemen) makes the drivers slow down of their own accord.

Monday, April 15/2019

To the Saatchi Gallery, one of our regular stopping spots. The best exhibit this year is a series of arctic photographs by two winners of the 9th Carmignac Photojournalism award. There are works depicting Alaska and Resolute Bay, as well as Greenland and Norway, but the most compelling are of Russia. The message is clear for all countries. Both the fragile (if harsh) environment and the Indigenous people who populate it are at risk as the land and its natural resources are exploited regardless of the risks of pollution and global warming. 

In Russia there are pictures not only of ice breakers and oil rigs but of the Native families, their lives a fascinating combination of the timeless traditional and the most modern technological. Summed up strikingly by a photograph of the camp of a nomadic herding family taken from the window “eye” of the government helicopter that takes the children to boarding school. A companion photo, also by Yuri Kozyrev, shows a family gathering the children’s belongings as they await the helicopter’s arrival. 

And then there are the mammoth tusk hunters, delighted with their find but probably more exploited than exploiters, also captured by Kozyrin. They’ve been tunnelling underground, using water pumps, adapted from firefighting gear and snowmobile engines and are delighted with their find, as the price for a kilo of tusk ivory was $60 and one tusk would cover their expenses. But the story is more 
complicated, as an accompanying poster explains.  

So the future of the young men and their community? Who knows? And finally there is a haunting photograph by Kadir van Lohuizen of the jawbones of whales marking a cemetery boundary in Alaska. 

Sunday, April 14/2019

Second trip to Covent Garden Genius Bar. The first one established that the iphone’s battery failure was down to a swollen battery. Sounds like a medical diagnosis. Its heart isn’t working as efficiently as it used to - happens with age, you know. It isn’t old, but is a lot older model than they’re pushing these days. And actually swollen batteries seem not to be age related. No longer under warranty. We reject the offer to send it away. Would be a new iPhone 6 but the warranty would be 90 days. Price £300 ($522 CAD). Instead we asked in one of the myriad of tiny mobile sales and repair shops. Bought a battery for £30 and downloaded an update. At which point everything needed resetting and I no longer remembered the password for the erstwhile dysfunctional phone. Deliberately not the same as the iPads. 

Left requiring that Apple phone me on said not yet functional phone. So down to Covent Garden Apple store. They do arrange for Apple in the sky to phone me on the little Nokia. But it emerges that I must be phoned on the number I registered with. Can’t put the iPhone’s sim in the Nokia as it’s not the right size. Could I use another phone? One in the Apple store? Appeal to two young Apple geniuses (genii?) who seem nonplussed but disappear to see what they can find. Back to Patrick, nice Apple man with Irish accent talking to me on Nokia. Tell him that weird as it may sound, the two geniuses are seeing if they can find a smart phone in the Apple store. Fortunately he is amused and stays on the line. One genius eventually returns with suitable phone and puts my sim in it. Activate ‘find my phone’ and follow directions through to establishing new password. 

Appreciate anti-theft procedures but tell Patrick my temptation is to write password on forehead. He has, with patience and good humour, stayed on the phone for 22 minutes, my Nokia reports. Nokia has no sophistication at all, but is a trusty little trouper. Nine years old and its battery still fine - and if it didn’t could be very cheaply replaced by me in a manoeuvre that takes about 15 seconds. True, phone calls, texts and acting as an alarm clock is about the extent of its repertoire, but it does those reliably, which is often all that’s wanted. 

So tube to Indian Veg, our standby vegetarian restaurant near Angel tube station. Good buffet, and very busy, though it’s not quite five. We’ve brought our own wine, as usual, conveniently decanted into little individual plastic wine bottles saved from Air Canada for the purpose, and Indian Veg always happy to provide glasses. They’re lovely. Very earnest in the huge posters on the wall promoting vegetarianism with sincere if sometimes dubious information. Though the bits about the energy required to produce grain compared to that required to produce meat sound about right - and more or less what I was telling my social justice students forty years ago. Also, Indian Veg does provide containers of food to the homeless. So as we’re leaving we admire the Indian Veg coffee mugs - and the proprietor insists on giving us one and is delighted to find it will be going to Canada.

Saturday, April 13/2019

The face of Queensway is changing. Oddly enough the first place J and I went out for a meal, some thirty years ago. A fish and chips place that has long since vanished. We’ve tried to identify which shop, or more likely restaurant, it was, but without success. A couple of the souvenir shops go back thirty years, and probably both of the remaining pubs do as well. Think the tiny Lebanese doner place is the old one, though the place where you used to be able to buy a quarter of a roast chicken is long gone, and the Spar store that had a small deli section closed its doors a few years ago, leaving behind a notice that it had been shut down by public health authorities due to rodent infestation. 

Coffee shops seem now to be busier than pubs, and there are four on the street, as well as other places where you could have coffee and a biscuit. The two tube stations are, of course, long-standing, although the substantial roadworks in front of Bayswater are new since our last visit and have led to a single lane section and some traffic rerouting. The Marks and Spencer food store is gone, but that does leave two small Tesco and two small Sainsbury outlets, with a full size Waitrose round the corner. There are several restaurants, fast food and regular, and of course the pubs serve meals. We rarely eat here, though. It’s a bit touristy and, while locals may indeed eat here, you never really get that sense the way you do in some other parts of the city that exude a sense of neighbourhood.

Friday, April 12/2019

Unusually cold here for the time of year, although quite sunny. Which should nake it warmer but doesn’t really because there’s a bit of wind. We’re just setting up for the rest of the month. And missing wifi in the process. The schools are on a spring break, so the more kid friendly attractions like the Natural History Museum will be busier than usual. And the London School of Economics is also taking an Easter break, so public lectures suspended till the last week of April. 

Thursday, April 11/2019

Up early, though the two hour time change from Sofia to London makes this pretty painless. By tube to Guy’s Hospital, which has an excellent dental clinic, to consult on what I fear is a broken tooth. Reassured that it is a bit of broken porcelain on the cap, which is intact. Not urgent before return to North Cyprus. Was in this clinic once before, re a broken, filling, fifteen plus years ago. They were absolutely super then as well. Clinic opens at 8:30, registration (four page form, numbered in order of arrival) at 7:45. We’re there at 7:30 and collect form #12 to fill out before registration opens. Most interesting bit on the form is a carefully worded request for (voluntary) info on ethnic origins, which they want, they say, in order to make sure they serve people of diverse backgrounds. Three choices in the white origins section - British, Irish, and other (please specify). Check both British and Irish and decide not to bother with the genealogical distance which would add German and Dutch. 

Then leave for coffee in the main lobby and back for 8:30. It’s a very efficient system. The waiting room is full, both of those without appointments who arrived before and after us and, as the registrar explained, of a number of people who have specific appointments and are not queue jumping. Several dentists (actually final year students) working in a fairly large surgery, and we’re out of there by 9:15. 

Take advantage of our early start to go up Kilburn High Road and collect grapes and bananas from the street stalls and to look in the shops. Also hot cross buns and oat cakes. 

Oh yes, re Brexit- final final date postponed, appropriately, to Hallowe’en, by which time we’ll probably be back in London. The melodrama continues.

Wednesday, April 10/2019

There’s a taxi stand outside our building and cab fares are cheap here, but we’re only a hundred metres from our nearest metro stop and the line goes to the airport with no changes, so actually the most difficult part of the journey is the 86 steps down from our flat to the street with full suitcases - though better than carrying them upstairs. Terminal two is nicer than terminal one, where we arrived. But, as with most airport upgrading, what has improved is the facility’s ability to separate you from your money. Reject the overpriced Bulgarian brandies (tellingly priced in euros). Had intended to spend remaining Bulgarian coins at the airport but discover coffee is double the price at terminal one. So a small bottle of water does it. Actually have small empty water bottle with us, which we refill with perfectly drinkable tap water, so that’s us sorted. 

Good flight with plane not full, and queue at immigration only about 15 minutes, as we wonder whether next week, should there be a Brexit crash out on Friday, will see massive longer aliens queues. Ask immigration officer, who says who knows - she’s had nearly three years to make up her mind and she still hasn’t made up her mind. So we do what we do until someone tells us otherwise. Laughs, and over there we’ll be in the long queues. 

Back in our old digs off Queensway, though on second floor (i.e. North American third floor, as European storey counting begins with zero). Small, but nice in a retro thirties way. And, two or three times a year, home. No wifi - that’s for the coffee shop office - but the best telly we get during the year. BBC news channel covering the EU response to the latest UK request for a Brexit extension. Embarrassingly (one would think, but Theresa May has an extraordinary ability to withstand embarrassment), May gets to make an hour long presentation and then is sent away while the other 27 EU countries decide her fate over dinner. But we fall asleep before the final announcement.

Tuesday, April 9/2019

Heavy rain but we’re warm and dry on the fourth floor. Last day, so we’ve done pretty well in terms of weather. Quick trip out in the afternoon during a rainless spell. We need bread and (no, we didn’t need them but there they were saying pick me) pastries. Will pack a lunch for the plane tomorrow as tastier, healthier, and miles cheaper than on board offerings. Besides, contents other than bread would otherwise have been left over. About to move away from kitchen, wifi, and iron, but to the city about which Dr Johnson said “If you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life”.

Monday, April 8/2019

Predicted rain does come, but only after we’ve had a chance to wander round a bit more of the city. Discover lots of little shops, many with local arts and crafts and others regular small clothing stores, shoe stores, and corner shops. Quite a few bakeries and coffee shops. A surprising number of places are almost a cross between a kiosk and a corner shop. You can see the coffee, or pastries, or even bottles of liquor, through the window, but you can’t go inside. There’s a wicket where you ask for what you want and hand in your money, and your purchase is handed out to you - a bag of chips, a beer, a bottle of whisky, or whatever. There may or may not be a couple of tables with chairs on the sidewalk outside. Most likely to be if the shop is selling coffee, beer, or wine. 

Decide to try one of the local rakias, feeling like kindergarten kids as we sound out the names. In theory rakia could be apricot or plum, but most are grape based. So here we are laboriously spelling oout words on the labels and hoping our Bulgarian is up to the challenge. A young man gives us advice. What we’d taken for an unfamiliar fruit turns out to be a grape variety, so that explains that. We’re slowly getting better at it, but it takes a while before ракия looks like rakia to us. Take a half litre home to sample.

Sunday, April 7/2019

The plan was to stop at one of the small local restaurants for a bite of Bulgarian home cooking. We learn a number of things:

1) Most cafés serve coffee and beer, maybe wine and vodka. Not food.

2) Many places are just windows where you can get a drink. And maybe a pastry.

3) There are many bars in our neighbourhood. Might have crisps.

4) Only real restaurant in our neighbourhood is a pizza place - Italian not Bulgarian

5) Bulgarians are highly sociable. Everyone in the world is out having a drink.

6) As with many Europeans, getting to sit down at a bar or café is not important.

7) Ditto getting to go inside. It hasn’t  to rain has it?

8) Good choice of Bulgarian food at deli counter of our (German) supermarket 

9) Escalators at above don’t work until you step on them. Why waste electricity?

So collect food from the deli in Billa and have a meal at home. Bulgarian mavrud (dry red) wine.

Saturday, April 6/2019

There’s a free Sofia walking tour with no sign up required so we show up at the Palace of Justice, along with about 75 other people. It’s a volunteer project with young guides, mostly between twenty-five and thirty-five it seems. Have read a number of their bios online and they’re an impressive bunch, mostly with professional qualifications in the arts, history, political science, or law. We’re with Kris, a young man with a nice balance of humour and information. In two hours we get the low down on about twenty monuments, buildings, and sites in central Sofia, as well as a quick overview of its history. He’s helped by a couple of geographical and historical facts. The current centre of Sofia has always been the centre and so each successive wave - Thracian, Roman, Slav, Ottoman, Russian - has left its mark in the heart of the city. The modern city is built on top of preceding layers. 

There has been considerable excavation. As in Athens, the construction of the Metro involved the uncovering of a stunning amount of the ancient city, though Roman, of course, rather than Greek. And took, with the help of archaeologists, forty years. No time to go in the buildings, but a number of brief glimpses, photo ops and explanations. The oldest part has Roman ruins as well as St George’s Rotunda - round, red brick, fourth century, and still in use. Wedding photos amongst the ruins seem popular, and we pass a couple of wedding parties. The original subterranean hot springs still function too, now with taps attached and old ladies bringing plastic containers to collect the mineral water. It used to be the source of water for baths when homes lacked running water. The temperature is supposed to be 37 degrees - so pretty well body temp. The underground ruins share territory with the Metro, so people pass by them daily in the city centre and are encouraged to share the space rather than its being entirely roped off or out of bounds.

Friday, April 5/2019

Explore our immediate neighbourhood, just south and east of the famous Eagles Bridge. The city centre is immediately north of us and has most of the historic cultural sites, museums, and gall, but it is consciously tourist territory. Menus in English as well as Bulgarian. Prices pretty reasonable by international standards. Our neighbourhood, though, is entirely local. Only Bulgarian spoken on the street and on almost all signs, notices, and shop windows. Here people live in flats amongst dozens of small shops, bakeries, and cafés. 

There’s a nice old fashioned practicality about it too. It’s possible to buy either a broom handle or the business end of the broom. Breaking the one or wearing out the other doesn’t mean that both wood and straw need replacing. A store that says мляко in the window (“milk” - fortunately we’re getting better at transliteration and fortunately in this case the Bulgarian is much like the Polish, apart from the alphabet) seems to sell nothing but yoghurt and mild - ok tasteless - white Bulgarian cheese. May also sell milk - we don’t go in. Shops labelled alcohol and tobacco seem a popular combo, though one never seen in Canada. And indeed quite a lot of people are smoking on the street, many of them, J observes, young women. It would probably be possible to spend your whole life in a six block area here and meet all your needs in local shops. 

Stop slightly north of our place at a small supermarket in the basement of a building for a few basics - yoghurt, eggs, lentils, bulgur, onions, carrots, vegetable spread, and fruit. And then the treats from the deli - cooked peppers stuffed with a bean mixture and and fried patties that seem to be mainly puréed lentils. Delicious.

Thursday, April 4/2019

Bit of catch up on sleep. Not the Med, so temperature can go zero-ish at night, though warm enough in our flat. Daytime high teens, though. Amazing number of beautiful historic buildings as well as museums and galleries within walking distance. We’ve chosen a really good spot. Visit Alexander Nevsky Cathedral just up the road. It’s enormous as well as beautiful. The gold plated dome is 45 metres high and the building apparently holds 5000 people. There are about 30 or 40 people inside when we go in, most obviously tourists, some of them taking photographs, despite the signs asking one not to. Outside is a tree in full white blossom with a number of red and white string bracelets hanging from the lower branches. Turns out they are part of a tradition going back to pagan times. The martenitsa is a red (for fertility) and white (for health) yarn bracelet and martenitsas are exchanged among friends at the beginning of March and worn until one sees a blossoming tree a stork or a swallow, when it is hung on a blossoming branch as a sign that spring has arrived. 

Stop at a Lidl shop for provisions. The bakery section is out of the pastries that are on special offer, and I, familiar with the Cypriot store say sarcastically “how unusual”. Whereupon a man beside us asks if we’re from England and we confess to Canada. He’s quite pleased as we’re the first Canadians he’s met here. Home to the flat and up the 86 stairs. Nice meal as reward when J cooks the Lidl chicken.

Wednesday, April 3/2019

Day starts ridiculously early. Bill and Jane pick us up at 6:15. Very kind, but unnecessary, as the bus is right across the street. Although it is still dark out and bus arrival times are somewhat unpredictable, so we’re grateful. As predicted, Larnaca airport upgrading consists primarily of more ways to separate you from more of your money, making it the most expensive airport we use. Basic cup of coffee €3.50 ($5.25 CAD, £2.98). Water similarly priced but round the corner from the bottom of the escalator to the floor below ground level is a tiny loo for one person with real sink and tap delivering cold water (unlike the regular loos upstairs that have only hot water), so it is still possible to defeat ludicrously overpriced single use water in the upgraded sales points. 

Flight about two hours and a grand total of twenty minutes between touch down and collected luggage, including immigration. Always simplest flying from one EU country to another, but this is truly impressive. We are supposed to collect the keys to the flat at two o’clock so arrival at eleven gives us plenty of time to kill. So coffee in a little café in arrivals - nearly empty and very cheap. Shuttle bus to Terminal 1 where the Metro line starts - or ends, depending on your point of view - and twenty minute ride to university stop, which is our home station. 

We stop in the park for a sandwich from J’s carryon as we’re early for our arranged meeting with Vladimir who lets us into the flat. The only downside - which we did know when we booked - is the four flights up. Vladimir kindly carries my suitcase, although judging by the grunts and heavy breathing he may regret the offer. He’s probably in his forties, so discreetly I refrain from telling him that the case J is quietly carrying behind him is the heavier - 19.4 kilos compared to my 17.9. Flat is a pleasure. Super views (the upside to all the stairs), lots of space, well equipped kitchen, good wifi, multiple English language channels on the tv, and framed photos from iconic films as decor. New home.

Tuesday, April 2/2019

Packing done. Three labelled boxes and the small clothes drying rack to the storage area in the staff coffee and general junk room. Storage space gets smaller and junkier by the year, and clearly the Norwegians have left things before us, though highly unlikely they’re responsible for the chaos - empty coloured plastic 5 litre containers, bashed in boxes, a small table missing its glass top and perched upside down and crooked, a tartan fabric trolley, many etceteras. 

Then to To Kazani for dinner with Jane and Bill. We’re ridiculously early by Cypriot standards - six o’clock - in the interests of an early night as we have to be at the airport at 6:45. Super meal. Jane has lamb chops and the rest of us mixed grill, which proves to be both a nice mix and enormous. And, whether or not it’s because it’s Bill’s (early) birthday meal, the waiter brings little glasses of comandaria (sweet, strong Cypriot wine) and zivania (local schnapps equivalent). 

Monday, April 1/2019

                                                     photo @Jim_Cornelius

Packing day. Only four possibilities: take with us, give away, store here for next year, or throw out. Lots of microdecisions, though. Today is a holiday. Not quite independence day but the day when the guerilla movement known as EOKA began, a guerilla movement designed to gain freedom from being a British colony, a conflict not entirely creditable on either side.  Mixed up with a history of Enosis, the movement for political union with Greece. The chief problem being not the interest in union with Greece - a desire not particularly shared by the Greeks - but the wish to eradicate the Turkish presence on the island at the same time. 

Watch the evening debates in the UK parliament on the second of the days when parliament rather than the executive control the agenda and come close to but not quite to agreement on some aspects of Brexit. Have lived my entire life in a country with a Westminster style  parliament and paid reasonably close attention to what was happening. Even took a Canadian Politics course in university. Admittedly a little over half a century ago now 😏 but the system hasn’t changed much. However this open conflict between parliament and government (the executive, i.e. prime minister and cabinet) is totally new to me, as is the hostility with which the prime minister responds to parliament, and the unequal power, with parliament at the mercy of (even a minority) government. A little comic relief though, as several demonstrators, women as well as men, clad only in political fig leaves, stand in the gallery with backsides to the MPs on the floor below, protesting lack of concern for environmental threats to the survival of the planet. Once sat next to a young man who was evicted merely for reading a book. This lot a bit harder to shift, though, as some of them have glued their bums to the glass and removal of glue and demonstrators not simple.