bearing blog

Tyburn, Westminster Abbey, Matilda.

We are down to the last few days, and on the last day there's a Tube strike planned, so we must focus.

I made the three big kids get up at nine and leave at ten, because the sisters at Tyburn Convent offer a tour of their shrine daily at 10:30.

Outside Marble Arch tube station we discovered something cool: outdoor ping pong tables! The last players had left the ball on the surface, tented under two paddles so it wouldn't roll away: two more paddles were in slots under the table.

Sadly, we had to move on so as not to be late.

Tyburn Convent and Shrine occupies two adjacent door-fronts of a row of buildings opposite Hyde Park. We crossed a couple of streets and easily found it; it stands out with its red brick and its large outdoor crucifix, and a switchbackihg accessibility ramp. First we went in the convent's front door, into a tiny lobby with a door and also a grilled window, and stairs behind a tall metal gate going down, and many notices posted on the walls, and rang the bell. And waited. Then we wondered if we should have gone up the ramp; perhaps that was the entrance to the shrine?

I sent the 13yo ahead and then walked there myself. The ramp led to a button-operated sliding glass door which admitted us directly to an adoration chapel, with a few people inside: an elderly white couple, a Hispanic mother with a stroller and a toddler. The Host was exposed behind the grille in front.

If I stumble accidentally into an adoration chapel, it seems rather pointedly wrong to say "Excuse me, I was looking for something else," and stumble out again, so I signaled "A few minutes" to my oldest and we knelt down briefly, paused there.

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The Tyburn Nuns is a well-beloved shorthand for the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre. This is their motherhouse, and they have monasteries in several other countries. The canonization cause for their foundress, Marie-Adèle Garnier, founded the congregation in France in 1898 (at Montmartre, hence the name) but fled to England because of the laws in France against religious orders, and settled there at Tyburn, a bit more than a stone's throw from the site where the English Catholic martyrs of the Reformation were hanged along with centuries' worth of common people accused of crimes.

After our brief adoration we genuflected and went back to the front lobby, where a sister was just opening the door to see who had rung the bell. "I will get someone to open the grille," she said, in a strong West African accent, and closed it again. And then behind us we heard a hearty, "Hello!"

Coming up the stairs one foot at a time was a plump, cheerful, bespectacled nun, like me not quite five feet tall. "I'm so sorry I didn't hear the bell," she said, "I was just putting the mop and bucket away, and then I thought to myself, I hear footsteps upstairs. Are you here to come down to the crypt?"

"Yes, we're here for the tour of the shrine," I said, "are we in the right place?"

She laughed as if that was a silly question, because of course it was. "You're very welcome here!"

I introduced myself and the children, and explained that my husband had stayed back with the two youngest, and she said that next time I should bring them along as she unlocked the gate and welcomed us down to the basement crypt. "I'm Sister Thomasina," she said.

"Now I want you to know that as you're looking around down here, please feel free to take pictures. As many as you want! I know some feel they aren't supposed to, in a holy place. But our work is for everyone, and the more people know about it, the better."

So I did take pictures.

This is their altar, topped by small replica of the Triple Tree:

Sister Thomasina had a way of telling that started down a path, went down a trail, backed up to the main narrative, then started again down another trail. She began by explaining the long history of hangings at Tyburn. "East was the sea," she said, "so when people approached London from the countryside they came from the west, and there was a little river here, the Tyburn. And you know, they wanted the criminals to be hanging there when visitors came from the west, so that is why the executions were here. And—listen—" She held up a finger and we heard a low rumble grow, tremble the floor, and die off. "That's the train, from the Underground. Well, we're downstream of the Triple Tree, and you know, the river once flowed under here, it forked. So we say that the blood of the martyrs flowed under our feet."

She described hanging and drawing and quartering in detail, and she had a very different demeanor from the Yeoman Warder who gave our Tower tour; he played it for laughs. She was not somber, though; there was a certain cheerfulness in her telling of the story. She explained the size of the gallows, big enough to drive two carts side by side under each crossbeam, big enough to hang eight people on each, twenty-four in all.

"These reliquaries on the walls," she said. "On this side"—she gestured—"these relics were spirited away to France during the persecution, and they've been brought back here. And these on this side went to Spain, and they're back thanks to the Spanish Embassy."

 

 

"And here, come here." She beckoned us up to the gallows-altar, and flung back the red cloth covering it to reveal the altar-stone. "The relics in this stone are those of Edmund Campion." I put my hand to my face, and she invited me, "You can come and venerate it, if you like," and so I did, walking up and laying my fingers on the cool stone surface.

"There's some historic items over there if you'll just let me fetch my keys," she said, already on her way across the floor. The kids and I went into the other room, which was posted with a chapter from a book explaining the evidence for the location of the Tyburn gallows, and engravings that pictured the hangings and the grandstands, and a map of the path taken from Newgate Prison to Tyburn, with the stops along the way. One stop had been at Ely Place, where the 17yo and I had attended Sunday mass.

There was another bulletin board with pictures of more recent martyrs. Seven priests. Three nuns. Twenty-one men. Children. "Yes, it's never stopped," said Sister Thomasina. "And people from all over the world ask us to pray for them. This place is a center."

Sister Thomasina invited us through the gate into the kitchen garden, in a tiny courtyard. "Here is where we grow our herbs, and the salad things," she said. "We have room to try some new things now and then. Here, we are trying to grow an avocado tree. Don't know if it will bear fruit but it is worth a try."

In one corner of the garden was a raised stone sepulchre. "That's our foundress," said Sister. There was a little kneeler in front of the tomb, and above it a mural of the resurrected Christ. Right next to the kneeler was a large glassed-in bulletin board in which were posted printed emails. I leaned over; they were clearly petitions submitted to the Sisters via a website combox of some sort. All were crisp with relatively recent dates. I suspect that if you send them an email and ask for a prayer, your prayer will be posted here, next to the little kneeler.

She gathered us around and handed us a little card with a prayer printed on it. "A prayer for the canonization of our foundress," she said. "Why don't you come around here and let's all say it together right now."

So we did, and then headed back through the door, passing more posted petitions.

The crucifix on the wall we passed bears a tag that reads: Pray for those who died around this crucifix at Ypres in the 1914-1918 war and for their chaplain. R. I. P.

 

Before we left, Sister said to us, still unflappably cheerful: "If you have anything that is worrying you or burdening you, leave it here at Tyburn. Our prayers are for everyone here. Prayer is our work. Leave it here at Tyburn. And," she added with a wider grin, "if your burden isn't lifted, you may take that to mean that we can use some help! And pray for us, then."

On our way past Marble Arch we found the stone marking Tyburn where she had said it would be, flanked by three little oaks that had been recently planted to make a new Triple Tree.

 

 

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We walked down to the Bond Street station, past Selfridge's (which would be a better shopping destination than Harrods).

I had promised my daughter some sushi. We found a chain called Wasabi in the mall. Very nice: you can pick individually wrapped pieces of nigiri, maki, onigiri, and other things to make a bento box, or grab a preassembled combo to go. Also there are hot noodles and rice bowls. Once again, London fast food wins the category.

Then we took the tube to Westminster Abbey. Which had once been Benedictine, like Tyburn. But of course is quite different now.

 

I won't go into too many details, since Westminster Abbey is well known and easy to read about. I was surprised that the high and narrow nave did not really impress me all that much; on television it looks as if it would be sweeping and dramatically high, but it seemed smaller in real life. But I did enjoy very much the great age of it, the haphazard clutter of memorials and tombs placed any which way, the weight of the years measured in tombs of kings. The ceiling of the Lady Chapel is intricate as lace, and its survival of the Reformation a thing to be grateful for. My daughter loved Poet's Corner, and was pleased as punch to find a tidy little memorial to Wordsworth, her own favorite poet. What I think I liked best was the Chapterhouse, with its single central column rising up and branching into a many-splintered ceiling, and its perfect proportions; and the simple fact of all the monarchs' coronations, all on the same spot, since 1066.

I am not into the monarchy as celebrity, not all that interested in the queen's houses and the changing of the guard; but I am impressed by any human institution that preserves its relics and rituals for so long. I find myself, late at night, looking up place-names that I happened upon that day (High Holborn; Watling Street) to find out how long it's been there, how long it's had the name. I like the idea of things and practices enduring. And of the physical evidences of it: the golden spoon among the Crown Jewels, the ancient chair kept under glass in the Abbey.

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A couple of views from the walk back:

I came back to find Mark working:

"What did you do while you were home with Daddy?" I asked the 3yo. "We went to the playground," he said, "and we went for a walk in the town." They had walked to the grocery store. He was very pleased about it. I later found out that "Let's go for a walk in the town" had been the refrain all afternoon until Mark had agreed to run an errand.

Mark and I went out for a pint:

 

And picked up dinner (more sushi from a different chain):

 

I snapped a photo of a sign I had passed many times over the past few weeks, and been pleased by:

After a quick gobble of dinner, I set out with four children to the Cambridge Theatre in Seven Dials. We had tickets to Matilda: The Musical.

 

I haven't time for a proper review, so I'll just say that we all loved it, with the possible exception of the 7yo for whom it was a bit too intense and dark. I think he was okay in the end, though. Although I love Roald Dahl (even, or especially, his stories not written for children), I never have read the book Matilda nor seen the movie from a few years ago. I only had a vague idea of the plot. So it was unspoiled for me, and I enjoyed it greatly. There seem to be a few places in the story that are paced irregularly, the mark of an imperfect adaptation. But the music is wonderful, and there was the extra delight of a passel of very talented children. Matilda herself was played wonderfully dryly by Savannah Read, a tiny girl with long red hair and expressive body language. The set design and lighting is brilliant. A lovely evening out with the kids.

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V&A, Diana Memorial Playground, and my first London show.

The Victoria & Albert Museum, which seems to be officially christened the V&A these days, had an exhibit going that made Mark want to go with me.

It wasn't a very large exhibit, just one room of objects and materials, but put together very well. In the museums I have been to here, the explanatory materials (signage, accompanying videos, interactives) have been top-notch for anything remotely technological.

This one had plenty of interesting objects as well as technical demonstrations (how is plywood made? why can it be formed into so many shapes? why does it make such good chairs?). With the right glues, it can be waterproof; it's light, formable, and strong; we saw boats, car parts, suitcases, a bookbinding (the Shackleton exhibition brought a printing press to Antarctica and printed books using their plywood packing crates as hardbacks). Disposable lightweight airplane gas tanks:

 

Eames (yes, he of the sleekly curved and modern molded plywood chair) apparently did his war work making sleekly curved and modern molded plywood leg splints:

Having finished that, we picked galleries that both of us were interested in (so I probably saw something quite different than I would have had I gone alone. We stuck to the rooms labeled "Techniques and Materials," and started with the enormous collection of cast iron and wrought iron.

Rooms and rooms and rooms of it. Railings, pothooks, keys, altarpieces, fire baskets, gates.

We also saw silver and gold work, the jewelry room, alabaster and ivory carvings (the latter, mostly small pieces, displayed under glass in drawers you could pull out, so you could examine them closely). A display of sculpted clay pieces arranged them to show the different steps in the process: rare surviving works in unfired clay, then terra cotta, then glazed works.

Wood carving masterworks struck Mark's fancy. This was his favorite. Its detail and composition reminded me of large pieces in the MIA at home, carved in China from jade:

 

I appreciated the building itself very much. It lacked the maze of cubical white rooms that's so common, and is made instead of courts and wide, high halls, many of them visible from above by means of galleries on the upper floors. They display many large pieces that way. The smaller galleries that run alongside often contain explanatory material or smaller pieces that are related to the massive works in the middle. It is very grand and lovely.

We spent two hours there. Sadly, the temporary exhibit of Pink Floyd artifacts was sold out when we tried to buy tickets.

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The day itself was relatively pretty, and I suggested for the afternoon we take the three smaller children to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens. We would have lunch there from the food stand, and then stay and play. The promise of food brought the teen boys too, but once we got to the gardens they decided they'd rather explore. So I gave them money and off they went.

The two little boys, on seeing the playground, refused to eat until they had been allowed in to play.

 

I fed the 11yo first (chicken nuggets for her; caprese panini for me) while Mark went in with them, then came in and gave him a chance to go eat (stone-baked Parma ham and rocket pizza). My daughter volunteered to run around playing with the 3yo, and my 7yo was already making friends, so I felt free to walk around and explore the place myself.

The playground is entirely fenced in, with one entrance by the food stand (it has one counter inside and one counter outside, and there are picnic tables on either side of the gate). To get in, you push a panel and, if you are an adult accompanying children under 12, a guardian buzzes you in. You must also be buzzed in to leave. So, while technically parents are supposed to supervise their children, once inside the playground children can run freely through numerous outdoor "rooms."

The playground has a Peter Pan theme. The pirate ship is glorious, with smaller rowboats on the side, some stable, some mounted on springs so they can be made to rock hard left and right. The Lost Boys' house is a clearing encircled by a wooden fort, with slides and log bridges:

 

 

The lagoon looks like it might be a fountain in the summer, and even now there are fountains that send water in when children work them. Tantalizing shapes and objects are embedded in the concrete to look like prints in the sand: the mark of a rope, planks washed ashore, rocks arranged in the form of a crocodile. Plus shells and other small treasures.

There is a pathway that leads to an ring of trees, with a standing column of black rock in the center, that darkens and filters the sunlight to a creepy gloom. And there is a section of outdoor musical instruments, like a polished piece of granite deeply cut so that a smack will set it ringing with a bell tone, and percussion instruments, and this panel of metal spring-mounted squares that each sound a different note when you jump on them.

Read the final paragraph on the explanatory board: "It is now recognized that risk taking is an important element of play and physical development.

Bravo! I guess the Queen is just not all that worried about being sued if a child breaks her arm. Take another look at that pirate ship:

While we were there, a girl of about seven climbed the ropes to the topmost horizontal crossbar and worked her way out to the end. She clearly knew what she was doing. It was a joy to watch.

After a while, the teen boys came back, having explored the vast grounds of Kensington Gardens and then gone to Tesco for the £3 lunch special.

My 13yo son was SO pained that he was technically too much grown to play in this playground. I could see his eyes sparkling when they lit on the pirate ship.

We let him go in as "accompaniment" to the 3yo, with a careful admonition not to get in the way of younger children. And bought more food (the 3yo polished off nearly all of a New York Style Hot Dog with mustard, and ice cream novelties were had). And stayed still longer.

I think maybe we were there about two and a half hours? And it was one of the more fun playground afternoons I have had.

I don't know why American playgrounds have not adopted the very, very sensible European practice of putting a fence around playgrounds and having only one exit. Even if you don't have a guardian buzzing kids in and out, this makes it so much easier to safely supervise multiple kids: park yourself where you can see the exit, and you can watch in peace. Unless you have the sort of child who will climb the fence against strict instructions (and I know some of us do, true, but for most a fence can be a hard boundary), a one-exit fence is the kind of safety precaution that allows for more freedom and independent risk-taking for the children inside it.

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Mark and the 17yo walked to get carryout from Nando's for dinner: piles of wings and fries, and some salad and corn on the cob.

"One of the things that's great about British food," says my 17yo, "is that you never have to worry, when you look at a menu, about whether you should get medium spicy, hot, or extra hot. Wings, vindaloo, whatever. Just order the hottest level always. You never have to worry that it will be too hot. Hottest is generally just right here."

So far, this has turned out to be correct.

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After dinner, Mark and I headed out with our tickets for Young Frankenstein at the Garrick Theatre, a building which was financed by W. S. Gilbert.

This show is a retooling of Mel Brooks' original Broadway production, clearly an attempt to do something similar to what he managed with The Producers. It got mixed reviews in NY and has been tightened up from three hours to two. The monster is played here by the same actor who played him on Broadway.

Poster outside the theatre:

Interior of the theater. It's very cozy! We had front row balcony seats. I like balconies because of the wide point of view, and here it was definitely a good economic choice, as we were still quite close to the action.

Theatre selfie:

About the show itself: The audience around us appeared to eat it up, but I have to wonder what proportion of Brits are the sort of people who have seen the Mel Brooks movie often enough to quote it from start to finish. Because when you're steeped in the movie, like we are, it is a standard that no adaptation can live up to. Every departure from it, however necessary for the stage, is a step down.

It's also a good deal bawdier than the film. "What knockers!"/"Thank you, doctor" is positively understated compared to the new Brooks-authored musical numbers. You know how people say that Brooks could never make Blazing Saddles today? He couldn't put these musical numbers on the big screen, I think. They're not obscene, and they're not unfunny, but they're also not inoffensive and may cross lines that would make too many people uncomfortable. One song plays physical domestic abuse for laughs, for example. And some of it just works a little too hard, expecting bawdiness to stand in for actual humor. There were a couple moments where I cringed a little for the actors.

Still: The six cast members were all talented, with good strong voices. Igor's physical comedy was very effective. Inga's role called for an impressive display of both gymnastics and yodeling. The actors in the roles of Frau Blucher, Hermit/Kemp, and Monster inhabited the demeanor of the movie characters pretty well. The fiancé wasn't really anything like Madeline Kahn (more rich bimbo) but her demeanor was funny in its own way. And the sheer impossibility of filling the shoes of Gene Wilder had me rooting for the American-accented star, who was game for the challenge and, I think, did a fine job.

The ensemble sounded good. The dancing could have been a little more tightly executed, but I have high standards and maybe they were going for a rougher look. There were a few new one-liners tossed in that worked very well. All in all, I did have fun. But I am glad I didn't spend money on a ticket—though they were not unreasonably priced, both together cost us less than £100—for either teenage boy.

And if I was looking for an ordinary London experience, I thought, as we exited the theater onto Charing Cross still alive with light from the windows of pubs, and walked past the line of black cabs there to be hailed from the curb, I had certainly had one.

We stopped at a pub on the way home for one quick pint (Fuller's HSB for me, Red Fox for Mark), long enough to agree that the Sam Smith's are much superior, and walked back through Covent Garden, the bricks gleaming in the streetlight, the streets still relatively crowded at 10:30 p.m. on a Monday.

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Mass, Harrods, Science Museum again, and a lot of drinks at the pub.

I got up in the morning for 9am Mass at St. Etheldreda's, the oldest building currently in use as a Catholic Church in London, and either the oldest or second oldest in England. It was built between 1250 and 1290 as the chapel for the London residence of the Bishop of Ely, was taken over by the Church of England, and was purchased by a congregation of Catholic fathers in the 19th century. They restored it, with beautiful windows that are worthy of their medieval setting, and statues of the English martyrs between the tall windows on the sides. The windows receive considerable light due to the lack of tall buildings around.

It is a little jewel of a chapel; you can see the interior at this link.

Entering between the light stone pillars, you walk back alongside the chapel, where you can see a glimpse through a door to the undercroft, set with tables and chairs like any parish hall; up stone stairs and you go in at the back.

There is no electric lighting. The light for Mass came from the windows and from a few candles.

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Mass itself was a bit odd. It was the shortest Sunday Mass I had ever attended at 24 minutes. The priest skipped the second reading, the entire homily, and the prayers of the faithful. And by skipped, I mean completely omitted. I have been to Masses where the homily was two sentences long, but existed. There was no homily at all, and the second reading was just gone, the way it is gone at a daily Mass. I didn't know you could do that.

There was another American family behind us, and they were whispering to their children in confused tones.

But the Liturgy of the Eucharist went down as expected, so...

At any rate, odd as it was, it could not detract from the serenity of the setting.

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After Mass I split up from the 17yo (he would go on to have a day-long adventure, involving finding the highest building he could go up in for free, enjoying the view, buying an amazing lunch for only £3 at Tesco, letting his phone die, getting lost, figuring it out, finding a way to charge his phone on the fly—he remembered me saying there was an Apple Store in Covent Garden—and finally being able to call Mark to let him into the apartment, since he hadn't had a key).

I went out for breakfast at a corner café.

Spicy tomato juice, eggs Benedict—perfect except poached a bit hard—and two cups of coffee.

Then I came back, picked up two kids, and took them to see Harrods.

The 13yo split off from us to walk around on his own and buy lunch.

Me? I suddenly realized I was about to have a migraine and hurried desperately through the gilded and granite entry, holding the 11yo tightly by the hand to keep from losing her in the crowd, in search of water to take my sumatriptan tablet.

The directory said there was a coffee shop in the basement, so I hoped to buy a bottle of water, but when I got there it turned out, like everything else, to be Exquisite, and was "wait to be seated" only. I stood there for a moment, and then plunged into the shop, accosted a waitress, and essentially begged for a glass of water to take my medication. I may have been pale and trembling by then. She kindly gave me one, and let me sit in the booth for a moment. Hurray.

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That over, I knew I wouldn't feel well for a while, so we walked slowly and looked and looked. Fortunately, you can feast more sumptuously with the eyes than with the stomach.

Oh my. The Harrods food hall:

 

 

From there we went up to the Toy Kingdom:

The LEGO Harrods:

There were some things out for demonstration. My daughter loved this RC car.

We found the 13yo in the Porsche Design accessories department, where they sell sunglasses and watches, playing this driving simulator that was set up there:

Then we walked to the Science Museum for a go. Google Maps took us through a neighborhood with something-Mews as its street name, and indeed, the houses were made of former stables:

I passed through the Making the Modern World exhibit again with them, and caught items I had missed the first time. Look! Dr. Jenner's own lancets!

An engineering exhibit allowed kids to build computer models of various systems and then run simulations. Both kids (with some others) played for a while at a game of building a model Mars Rover, with different numbers of differently sized and located wheels, then running it over a simulated Mars surface to see how it performs.

The 13yo got tired and wanted to rest on a comfy cushioned bench in this dark room, so the 11yo and I went exploring in the Mathematics gallery.

Touchable model of a control unit for a 1968 Honeywell computer:

And this room-sized marvel, the Hartree Differential Analyzer, which solved differential equations by integrating with an analogue machine:

A "logic demonstrator:"

 

An energy game in which windmilling your arms did, I don't know, a thing:

We collected the 13yo in the main gallery and headed home, rather tired.

They've gotten quite good at standing on the right.

Mark and I went to the grocery store and picked up ready-to-eat odds and ends (salad with crunchy carrots and sweet corn; cold roast-beef-and-Stilton sandwich) and a few things to go in the oven: pizza, prawn toast, egg rolls, gyoza. We all ate our fill, and then Mark and I headed out into the night, aiming for another pub.

This time, The Cock.

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I want to say right now that Mark and I owe the heartiest thanks to reader and commenter Kathgreenwood for suggesting that we follow the map of Samuel Smith's pubs when looking for a place to spend the evening.

They are top-notch. No music or television, just a place where people gather, drink, and talk. Beautifully upkept—we watched the barkeep carefully polishing the already-gleaming brass with gloved hands:

And the beer? The best.

Old Brewery Bitter has been the best of the cask-conditioned ales I've had while here. Today we branched out. I started with a pint of Extra Stout and Mark a pint of IPA. Then we switched to the fruit beer. I stuck with apricot, and Mark tried strawberry:

Before tasting he stuck the glass under my nose. "Sniff," he ordered.

I inhaled deeply, closed my eyes. After a moment, I said: "Jam."

It smelled exactly like a freshly opened jar of home-canned strawberry jam. Not the vegetal notes of a fresh raw strawberry, but the scent of simmered, sugared fruit. Then I tasted.

Readers, if you taste this, you may never call a mere red wine "jammy" again.

It is sweeter and more fruit-forward than the apricot, the beer taste not blending so much as fading into the background. It isn't as balanced; while I could see drinking the apricot with certain spicy meals, as you might drink plum wine or Gewurztraminer, this was dessert. Delicious, strawberry dessert.

 

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Partway through the fruit beer we started reading about the abovementioned differential analyzer, which was famously built for the first time using an off-the-shelf children's erector set (Meccano) with a few specially made parts, namely a polished glass disc and a steel knife-edged integrator wheel. We tried to work out how it worked, with the help of an article about it I found from a New Zealand enthusiasts' club.

While digital computers are the descendants of finger-counting and abacuses and arithmetical algorithms, the article explained, analog computers like the integrator are the descendants of graphical solutions and surveying equipment. They are called "analog" because they rely on proportions and ratios: a physical quantity is input into the machine, and transformed by proportion into a quantity inside the machine that is mechanically manipulated and may be output via another proportional transformation.

We figured out how the disc and wheel work pretty quickly. Rotation of a polished glass disc through a certain number of radians is one step along the x axis in a finite-difference algorithm. Resting on the disc, and rolling as the disc turns, measuring arc distance, is a steel integrator wheel. The wheel's radial distance from the center of the disc, as the disc turns through x radians, is controllable: by moving it towards the center or rim as the disc turns, you are inputting the function y(x) to be integrated. The arc length it rolls out over a differential turn of the disc is y dx. Count how many rotations the wheel makes as the disc turns, and you are finding the area under the curve.

It took much pointing and literal handwaving, and another pint of beer, for us to make sense of the other important part, the torque amplifier:

p

The torque amplifier is necessary because there's very little friction between wheel and disc, and yet the output shaft has to drive a bunch of other parts downstream in order for you to produce something you can read, like a plot.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader. Or you can just move on to my review of:

Sam Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout.

You thought the fruit beers were dessert? This tastes like frothy cocoa, in a beer.

Only because it is full of cocoa, and sugar.

Purists might object to putting cocoa and sugar in a beer. These purists would be wrong.

I may be ruined for life, and spend all my beer shopping time seeking out rare Sam Smith's beers in Minneapolis.

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Odd display along Regent Street on the way home. Apparently there are American football teams playing in the U. K., sponsored by Mexico. Go figure.

This was by far the most fun evening that I have had here. Two and a quarter pints of beer might be the reason, or it was the company, or the force diagrams. Perhaps the lovely pub atmosphere, the stamped-tin ceiling and the brass. The barkeeps who were happy to explain why there were little glass louvers mounted at eye level above the bar (historical class separation: open to order your drink, close to maintain the illusion that the workingmen behind the bar would not hear the gentlefolk's conversation). The quartet of tattooed folks at the next table, who were there when we arrived and still there when we left just at closing time.

I thought it was oversold, but there is really nothing at all like "the pub" at home. Everything that is sort of like it, isn't even close: the coffee shop, the brewpub, the bar and grill, the neighborhood bar, the neighborhood café, the country club, the bed and breakfast, even the occasional "British Pub Themed Restaurant," none of them have all the pieces. Such a beautiful thing—I sincerely hope that Londoners appreciate this thing that they have on practically every corner.

I have been to Paris, Rome, Seville, Madrid, Toronto, Lisbon, Marrakech, Lyon, Florence, Nice, and a handful of small towns (not to mention a number of large U.S. cities). In all seriousness, London sweeps them all aside. Heart, stolen.

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Borough Market; Split up in Southwark.

What do you do on Saturday in London? All the guidebooks describe everything as "crowded weekends, so go on a weekday."

Well, Borough Market is only Thursday through Saturday, so this was our last chance.

We took the tube to Bank, hoping to change to the Northern Line to cross the river.

But after descending many stairs encountered a gate. The Northern Line was closed.

The easiest thing to do was also fairly pleasant: a walk across London Bridge. "I hope it's not falling down!" I said to the 7yo, who (as I predicted) thought that was terribly witty. You can see Tower Bridge in the distance.

At the south end of London Bridge is the spike that our Yeoman Warder said was kept handy just in case they ever have to put somebody's head on it in the future. Mark thinks this will never happen.

Knowing, though, that World War I and World War II spies were executed specifically in the Tower specifically for its symbolic value, as late as 1940, and believing firmly that a society's civil behavior is only a surface that can be easily swept away with the right motivations, I am not so sure.

Though maybe this spike will prove to be impractically tall and the point too brittle.

I believe that things will go south again someday for the people of this island, as I believe they will for people everywhere eventually. I have a sort of romantic notion, because it is so very old, predating all the proper records, that the City of London will still exist as an entity when the dust settles.

And a cynical notion (or is this still the romantic one?) that it will manage its survival in part by putting heads on pikes again.

Metaphorically?

Maybe.

+ + +

Off to Borough Market, which at around eleven was not quite a complete crush of people. We had to pass through a crushing bottleneck at one end, where we were squeezed between a wall and a bar with outdoor seating (I glimpsed a tray full of brimming pitchers of Pimm's Cup but was not able to stop and neglect my family long enough to run up to the bar and ask for one).

But when we popped out the other side it was no longer crushing, only crowded; there were many people milling around, looking and deciding perhaps, but once you made up your mind to buy something you only had to wait behind one or two other people.

The man at the liquorice stand got plenty of business from us.

I also bought, for our dinner tonight: spiced-pear chutney, two cheeses of sorts recommended to me by the chutney-seller (a creamy blue and a soft runny cheese, but both carefully selected to be mild so that the children might like them; I needn't have bothered), and two proper-looking Bavarian soft pretzels. The 17-yo asked for some clementine-like citrus fruits that he had sampled and declared amazing, and Mark chose three saucissons from a seller.

Then we had lunch! At first we thought we might find a table in one of the restaurants around the edges, then we thought we might leave to find a restaurant, and finally Mark decided he would stake out a spot near a bench and keep the 3yo while the rest of us fanned out to find food. "Just buy me lunch," he instructed, "well, lunch for you and for me and for the two little boys," so I took the 7yo and headed towards where we had seen an array of sellers of hot food.

A thing about the 7yo is that he does not like sandwiches of any kind, so we took a while in finding a not-sandwich. He agreed to a meat pie that promised to be filled with beef chili, beans, and cheddar. Relieved to have found something for the 7yo, I bought Mark a meat pie filled with beef and smoky bacon, plus mash on the side, no gravy; and a couple of sausage rolls for the 3yo, hoping that he would like them.

I delivered the child and the food to Mark, who had found a place to sit, and went off to find something for myself.

Börek!

Mine was filled with seasoned spinach and soft tangy cheese, and served with a pile of spicy chickpeas in a nest of hummus, with green chili relish.

SO GOOD.

I let the 17yo (who was contentedly deep in a meat pie) have a bite, and he thought mine was better than his.

And the 3yo adored the sausage roll! The pastry shattered into little bits all over his pants, but he was very happy. I may have to try making these at home. At least I know what to feed him (other than square bread and orange cheese sandwiches) for the next week.

Sadly, the 7yo did not approve of the chili pie, so he had to settle for eating a bunch of candy for lunch. Poor kid.

As for Mark, well, in my rush to get him something with bacon in it I had forgotten that pie is not really his thing. He ate it and it was fine, and he was perfectly nice about it, and of course he had told me I should just get him any kind of food, but I felt bad anyway, just from my own spousal misfire. I had failed to blow his mind as I had hoped with amazing meatiness and bacon and gravy sealed in a flaky crust, because pie is not the sort of thing that blows his mind.

I always forget this. Because what kind of person doesn't think pie is super awesome.

Sigh. I'll do better next time. Why don't they sell meat crumble?

+ + +

The 2 pm show at the Old Operating Theatre was billed as unsuitable for kids under 7. I volunteered to skip it and take a turn with the 3yo. On my back, he could ride along with me to the Tate Modern. Maybe we could meet up afterwards and go to the Globe if the kids weren't tired, or we could just call it a day.

Mark was on the "just call it a day" team. I thought we could leave it open, perhaps. #foreshadowing #MarkWasRight

+ + +

I love just walking through cities and seeing the sights and people, and so for me, the South Bank of the Thames, between London Bridge and the Millennium Bridge, was pure delight. I was so glad to be there on that I went into the first souvenir shop and bought the 3yo a toy red bus for £3.99.

This random purchase turned out to be a good value, as he chatted to himself about it for nearly the whole walk that followed, and only dropped it a couple of times. He was also happy to get a penny in change.

"...their virtues we write in water."

The line outside the Globe was super long. I texted this information to Mark. He was in the Old Operating Theatre museum with the kids waiting for the show. We had this exchange:

 

 

On to the Tate:

With an impatient 3yo on my back, I couldn't stay long. Enough to get a sense of the building, its space and its contents. It is sprawly, with large rooms, in two towers connected at floors 1 and 4 by bridges.

I saw a Matisse:

Also a Kandinsky and a Picasso and a Calder.

There was a delightful installation of a plate-glass disc, suspended vertically on the ceiling in a small cube of a room and steadily rotating. A spotlight was trained on it from the side; the disc had been treated somehow to reflect blue light and to transmit yellow, so as the disc rotated it cast a blue reflection that revolved around the room, growing and eclipsing with the angle of reflection; and it cast a stationary yellow reflection that also grew and eclipsed. The moving blue spot collided with the stationary yellow spot every time it came around, of course, at the same moment that each shrank to a line's width, and the 3yo cried, "Bang!"

I liked this, Gordon Bennett's Possession Island (Abstraction), acrylics, 1991:

And this, a sort of Tower of Babel made of old radios, all tuned to different stations:

And this, William Roberts' The Diners, oil, 1919:

And this installation (it's a long story; the artist started, performatively, by engaging a village to make wheaten wreaths for her annually; she had to stop; she tried different means to preserve the art somehow; she settled on sealing the wreaths in metal "tins" in which they are presumably decaying.)

The 3yo had had enough, so we started on a walk back to the flat, via the Millennium Bridge.

 

It affords lovely views. I enjoyed the walk and so did my little partner.

 

I got a new view of St. Paul's in a reflective ball on the other side. Unfortunately, it's dented right where you would get a full straight angle at the dome.

Around past the side of St. Paul's. Take that, Mary Poppins:

Many photos of ordinary London street scenes, like this:

Postman's Park, a little green jewel of a space, contained this intriguing sheltered wall of glazed-tile texts:

It is a work of private art for the public, a memorial to everyday heroes.

 

I enjoyed the many-layered angles of this view through a building to who-knows-where (besides the City Thameslink, that is):

I crossed the Holborn Viaduct, its rails brightly painted, studded with these dragons that remind us we are within the jurisdiction of the ancient City of London. A worker on the opposite side of the bridge had a big fluffy duster on a pole, and was carefully dusting the metal lions at the other end.

A glimpse through a gate.

Fleet Street.

I passed the Temple Bar memorial, and turned to get a photo of its dragon in the center of the street.

I stopped at the grocery store before finally coming back to the flat. Mark and the other kids had arrived only minutes before me. He left again to take some of the kids to Mass (I planned to go Sunday morning early, along with the 17yo), and, after resting a while watching "Horrible Histories" DVDs, I set up a dinner.

Pretzels, cheeses and chutneys from Borough market, apricot Wensleydale, saucissons. And hummus and veg and cut mango and blueberries and crackers and Irish soda bread and leftover chicken soup. And a bottle of red wine, Montepulciano from a store somewhere around here.

We were tired, and I planned to get up early; so off to bed for me.

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