| Submitted by: Evelyn C. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 11 February 2005 |
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A Travelogue by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper
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March 27, 1989: (Of course, to be British I should say '27 March 1989,' but let it pass.)
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Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages):
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
(And palmers for to seken straunge strondes)
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.
--Geoffrey Chaucer, THE CANTERBURY TALES
Though it's not quite yet April, Chaucer seems appropriate, especially the 'droghte of Marche.' Not even April and we are already under water restrictions--life is beginning to drift towards the more dystopian science fiction.
Well, back to the trip at hand. Having slept little last night, I dozed off as Dale and Jo drove us to the airport, waking up only to find us in a traffic jam. This of course made me a total nervous wreck, my worst fear apparently about to come true--we would be late and miss the plane. Of course we weren't and got to JFK with time to spare. We picked up our tickets, checked in, and proceeded to Gate 27 where we met Kate and Susan.
We talked for a while, then I noticed someone with a soc.motss T-shirt on so I went over and introduced myself and we talked for a while. (soc.motss is an electronic bulletin board I post to.) This was interrupted by an announcement of a gate change to Gate 39. This was on the other concourse, so we all had to go through the security check again. I told the woman in back of me it was because we had done it so well the first time, they wanted an encore. She seemed to like that.
The plane left an hour and a half late, most of which we spent on the plane. This was good, because there weren't enough seats in the waiting area. I had a window seat--good because I could lean against the wall to sleep, bad because there was a cold draft blowing on my legs. Eventually I wrapped myself in my raincoat and went to sleep for a few hours.
March 28, 1989: We arrived in London about 10 AM, but by the time everyone collected their luggage and got on the bus, it was about 11:30. On the way to the hotel, the guide told us about the money (pound notes are no good any more; luckily I had only one anyway), and other details we needed to know. Apparently someone asked if shops took dollars--Americans can be so parochial (can you use British pounds in shops here?). The guide also listed some optional tours which he seemed to think most people would sign up for. I suspect many of the people are first-timers in London, which is not what I expected.
We got to the hotel around noon. On the way we passed Madame Tussaud's, which had a much longer line than when we went ten years ago. I guess it's been discovered.
After freshening up in our room, we went out to cruise the bookstores, first stopping at a bank to change money. Then over to Tottenham Court Road and down it.
Our first stop was not a bookstore, but a pub for lunch. We all got the ploughman's lunch (bread, cheese, and salad) and split a pork pie. I also had a cider, something which is popular in Britain and impossible to get in the United States. Lunch came to 6 pounds for the two of us, or $10.80.
We then continued down Tottenham Court Road and its continuation, Charing Cross Road. Unlike our last visit, this time the weather seems to be with us--fairly mild and no rain so far.
When we got to Denmark Street, I told Kate, 'This is the street with Forbidden Planet on it.' (Forbidden Planet is the science fiction bookstore.) So we walked down the street and--surprise--no Forbidden Planet. There was, however, a mystery bookstore called Murder One, and when we went inside we found out that it used to be the location of Forbidden Planet, which had moved, luckily only a couple of blocks away. So while we were in Murder One, we looked around. I got a Sherlock Holmes comic I was missing, but most of their large selection of Sherlockia was either not of interest or over-priced. I guess I'm not enough of a fanatic to pay $20 for a novella.
Then we went to Forbidden Planet. The new store is much larger than the old one, with the main floor devoted to comics and the basement to books. They seemed to have every Philip K. Dick novel, for example, except for the one I'm looking for (VALIS). I did find one book--the new Russell Hoban novel, THE MEDUSA FREQUENCY. It's not actually new, being from 1987, but who knows when it will get to the States?
Then more bookstores, including Foyles, the world's largest bookstore (or so it claimed). My one objection to Foyles (other than the impossibility of seeing it all) is that the fiction and some non-fiction is arranged by publisher. This makes it easy for the staff and if you are looking for a specific book it's not a real problem, but you can't browse even for a particular author. I bought another book in one of the stores--far below my normal quota but I didn't have a huge list of books I was looking for and the high cost of books here encourages me to wait until they get to the States.
We finished up around 5:30 PM, then walked to Wyndham's to exchange our ticket vouchers for tickets. A brief explanation is in order here. Our first theatre package to London (ten years ago) included two tickets each which were for specific plays (NO SEX PLEASE, WE'RE BRITISH and AIN'T MISBEHAVING). These were not the plays we would have picked and the audiences were probably mostly on tour packages. This current package uses vouchers; I suspect most do, since the vouchers are obviously produced by a third party. We got a list of plays for which we could use the vouchers. There were about twenty plays on the list, but about five were no longer available. Even considering that the list is made up of the lesser plays (no PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, no LES MISERABLES, etc.), the choice is much better. We decided to try for THE SECRET OF SHERLOCK HOLMES and SINGLE SPIES. The former is Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke of the Granada television series; the latter is a pair of short plays about the real-life spies Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt.
Well, it turned out the vouchers could be exchanged only on the day of the performance, and since we were planning on using them Wednesday and Thursday and this was Tuesday, that was out. The woman did assure there would be no problem getting seats, so at least we were reassured on that count. I had considered ordering tickets ahead of time, but decided not to and see if we got them with our package--a wise choice.
By now we were all pretty tired/hungry, so we took a taxi back to the hotel, rested about a half an hour, then had dinner. Our package includes dinner at the hotel four nights, essentially a nine-pound credit in the coffee shop each time. This is fine with me; we're not really 'fancy restaurant' people. In fact, some might claim even a coffee shop is too high-brow for us.
I had grilled lamb cutlets--I love lamb. As I was blithely eating all the fat from them, Susan asked if I ever had my cholesterol tested and was surprised to discover how low it was. Good genes, I guess.
After dinner I went to sleep. The other three walked around and claim to have seen a pub called 'The Queen's Head and Artichoke,' but I find it hard to believe.
March 29, 1989: We overslept and didn't get up until Kate and Susan knocked on our door for breakfast. I had expected our 'continental breakfast' to be a roll and coffee (as in the United States), but it also included cereal, cheese, juice, yoghurt, and fruit.
Our first stop was the British Museum. On the way out our guide asked if we were taking the City Tour. When we said no, he mumbled something about how he hoped there were enough people for it. If he was trying to make us feel guilty it didn't work.
We walked over to the British Museum (about three-quarters of a mile). Since we arrived early, we walked up and down the street looking in the bookstore windows--Great Russell Street and its associated side streets near the Museum are thick with bookstores.
At 10 AM we went into the Museum and split into two parties, agreeing to meet at noon. Mark and I headed for the Egyptian section. This was less crowded than the first time we were there, but that had been on a Saturday (I think).
When we were in Egypt we heard a lot about how much was taken out of Egypt for foreign museums such as the British Museum. So I was surprised at how (relatively) small the collection was. Oh, certainly by most standards it is a very good and good-sized assortment: one large gallery of statuary and five smaller galleries of mummy cases and smaller objects. But compared to the Cairo Museum, it was a small fraction of the collection there.
It did have one advantage over the Cairo Museum--you could walk around without people coming up to you and offering tours or asking for tips. (Does saying that make me an ugly American?)
I did get to read a description of the Canopic jars. First of all, there were named that in the mistaken impression that they had something to do with Canopus who was buried at Canopus (well, that's what it said) and was worshiped there in the form of a jar with a human head. The jars actually represent the four sons of Horus, each of whom was responsible for a specific organ, as follows:
NAME - HEAD - ORGAN
Quebhsenuef - Falcon - Intestines
Duamutef - Jackal - Stomach
Hapy - Ape - Lungs
Imsety - Human - Liver
So now you know.
I will break tradition with my past logs and not tell you the complete history of every piece we saw. For one thing, this is a log about London and nothing we saw in the Museum was British.
After the Egyptian section came the Assyrian section, including statuary and bas reliefs from Ninevah. This is one ancient civilization that we have not studied extensively and hence were unable to recognize even the most basic motifs (such as Ugallu, the Great Lion) without reading the labels.
We bought a few items in the shop (some imitation netsuke--I suppose I should call them replicas, which is a much higher class of imitation--and a couple of other things), then met Kate at noon. Susan wasn't back so we left Kate to hold down the fort while we took a quick run through the Oriental gallery.
This involved going through the reading room. You know how in old movies you see the British Museum reading rooms filled with tables with people seated reading old leather-bound volumes? Well, now the rooms are full of display cases of old books; so far as I can tell no one reads there any more.
After the Museum we walked down Great Russell Street toward Tottenham Court Road stopping (of course) at the Cinema Bookshop. |
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| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
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