the tower to kensington to greenwich

On Friday, Jan. 16, I took the students to the Tower of London. The students were divided into small groups, and each gave a short presentation on some feature of the Tower. The Bloody Tower, the site of the scaffold, the White Tower, and the Ravens where all among the features they researched. One group even enacted the gruesome end of poor Margaret Pole. We then climbed the ramparts, admired the Crown Jewels, and checked out the graffiti in the Beauchamp Tower.

Here are some of the students enjoying the Tower:



One nifty feature of the Tower is its squeaky clean toilets. This is something they don't tell you in the guide books, but look:

Loo of the Year Awards in 2003 and 2005! How nifty is that?

After a tasty lunch at Grazing, Shane and I tubed it over to Kensington, where we pondered the Albert Memorial and walked around Royal Albert Hall. Here, fancy types who can afford overpriced tickets were emerging from cabs to see yet another new Cirque de Soleil show. We then walked down Exhibition Road to the Victoria and Albert and Natural History Museums. Here's Albert, gone but gilded:


Not satisfied with a nearly full day of walking, Shane and I then hopped on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), and went to Greenwich. We got off the train at Island Gardens, and then crossed the river through a Victorian pedestrian tunnel that runs beneath the Thames. The Cutty Sark is getting a facelift, so we couldn't see it, but we did stop off at the nearby Trafalgar Tavern for ales and lovely views of the river before walking through the old naval College and up a hill to the Royal Observatory. The day had darkened, and from here we had great views of Canary Wharf and the Millennium Dome at night. I was happy with the night photos I took up here. This one is my favorite:

Notice the green laser projected from the Observatory that marks the Prime Meridian. East is East and West is West, and here is where they meet.

We ended the day with another ale at the King's Arms in Greenwich before boarding the DLR and heading back into London.

You'll Robert Wright's walking tour of Kensington here and his tour of Greenwich here.

all these years i've been wandering around

Today is the 40th anniversary of The Beatles' Let It Be rooftop concert, so I made a pilgrimage to 3 Savile Row, where The Beatles performed their final concert. As soon as I emerged from the Oxford Circus Tube stop and started walking down Regent Street, I began playing Let It Be on my iPod. I turned off on Mill Street, which essentially becomes Savile Row, and made my way down to number 3. I was a little surprised that I was the only person hanging around outside the building, although two others stopped there. I walked up to them, and we exchanged a few words: "40 years ago today," "yeah, right up there." And then I walked up and down the street, listening to most of the album, and trying to get some worthwhile pictures.


You can check out the Rooftop concert on youtube here.

st paul's & the city

After finishing up the walk to Kensington, Shane and I hopped a Tube across town to explore the area East of St Paul's Cathedral. As many times as I've walked around St Paul's, I've still never been inside, so I'm putting this high on my list of things to do while in London. We wandered over to Samuel Johnson's house, which I'd visited in 1997, when I was a graduate student doing some research at the British Library.

Our next few walks also took us around St Paul's. One of the most interesting was one that took us through some very small and out of the way alleyways and onto the properties of several of the old City Livery companies. We also got an up-close view of the Gherkin.

Here are a couple more photos of St Paul's.

a freudian nightmare

As part of London Semester, I'm teaching a British Theatre course. On the evening of Jan. 13, I took the students to their first performance--a production of Joe Orton's Loot at the Tricycle Theatre. I'm glad we picked the students up from their flats to escort them to the theater, because the Tricycle is located in an area of town that may have put the students off had they made their way there on their own. I find Loot hilarious, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but I think it may have been too dark and cynical for the students. Still, I believe it was good for them. Many of them had all gone to see Avenue Q the evening before, and so they needed to see something a little less crowd-pleasing. In any case, we had a good discussion of it during the following morning's class, and if nothing else, they seemed to get what Orton was trying to accomplish.

Loot is a fast-paced farce steeped in black humor and satire. Orton takes middle-class British mores and turns them inside out, revealing them to be hollow and threadbare. Orton takes pot-shots at religious piety, reverence for the Royal family, squeamishness over sex, greed, and--most especially--law enforcement. Doon Mackichan was fabulous as Fay, a sexually voracious, avaricious black widow, who hides behind a façade of Catholic respectability, and who gets some of the best lines in the play. (At one point she quips, "I'm a woman. Only half the human race can say that without fear of contradiction.") And David Haig made for a very funny Truscott, a corrupt police inspector, who is by turns as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes and as ridiculous as a Keystone Cop. My favorite of his lines: "Policemen, like red squirrels, must be protected."

The other actors were not as adept. Matt Di Angelo and Javone Prince, who played the young bumbling crooks Hal and Dennis, seemed over their heads, while James McCleavy as the grieving widower delivered a performance that was often very good, but often only serviceable.

If you don't know much about Orton, here's a site devoted to him. Be sure you check out the images of the library books that he and his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, defaced and for which they served six month jail terms.

westminster to hyde park to kensington

Even though it was getting late and dark, Shane and I decided to complete the second portion of "London's Greatest Walk," and so we made our way down Whitehall to the spot where Downing Street is blocked off and where guards stand vigil. We didn't see the Prime Minister (actually I don't know what he looks like, so perhaps we did, but I'm guessing no) and we walked down toward St James's Park, between the Foreign Office and the Treasury. We followed a maze of small streets and alleys, and found a frieze of Queen Anne along the street that bears her name. We then went back to St James's Park and admired the views of Buckingham Palace and the London Eye, before making our way through Green Park. This leg of the walk ended at Hyde Park Corner, just beyond the Wellington Arch. As it was dark, I didn't get any pictures during this stretch.

Rather than take the Tube back to Notting Hill, we decided to take the bus. There had just been many protests against the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, so the streets were pretty jammed, and traffic was still fairly thick. It took ages to get to Notting Hill, but it was still cool to see all the fancy shops along Knightsbridge and Brompton Road.

The next day we joined our students for a bus tour around London. We'd arranged for our own coach and a guide named Abigail, who was entertaining and informative. That evening Joyce (who is teaching the Art course), Shane, and Carla (the program's administrative assistant) met at the Prince Edward, which is currently my favorite pub in the neighborhood. The fish and chips were great, and I liked both the Badger and the Tanglefoot ales.

Monday we began classes and, as we were busy with students and orientation and what not, Shane and I didn't complete "London's Greatest Walk" until Tuesday afternoon. It rained at the outset of the walk, but then the showers ceased, and Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens were beautiful in the clear, sunny skies, replete with rainbows. We followed the south and west banks of the Serpentine.



If you are into water fowl, The Serpentine is for you:


After wandering around the Serpentine Gallery for a little bit, we made our way to Kensington Palace, which was once the home of Princess Diana of Wales. We passed her memorial along the way:


We finished up at Kensington High Street.

south bank to big ben

OK, let's see if I can get caught up here.

Over the next two days, Shane and I took a three-part walk that took us from the South Bank to Kensington Palace. Robert Wright calls this "London's Greatest Walk," and it is a good one with plenty of classic sights to see along the way. It's also a long walk, and as the weather was pretty grim during our first day of it, we were icy cold along the Thames.

We began on the south end of the London Bridge, and visited Southwark Cathedral, where we found a memorial to Shakespeare. We didn't spend a lot of time here, so this is yet another cathedral I'd like to revisit, perhaps for a musical performance. Just beyond the Cathedral, near the Thames, is a replication of Sir Francis Drake's The Golden Hind. I was surprised at how small the vessel was--it certainly didn't look large enough to circumnavigate the world with much comfort or reassurance. Here's a picture of me being very chilly in front of it:


The walk took us past The Globe Theatre, alongside the Tate modern, and past the various buildings that are part of the South Bank Arts Centre (The Royal National Theatre, the National Film Theatre, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the Royal Festival Hall). Many people think these are amongst the ugliest examples of London architecture. I don't have a strong opinion one way or another, but I liked the way that graffiti artists and skateboarders had taken over the lower level of Queen Elizabeth Hall. I couldn't help but wonder what she thinks of this. Is she amused?

We went past the London Eye (which is always impressive to look up at from underneath its massive supports) and County Hall. At that point, we crossed the river over the Westminster Bridge. We concluded this portion of the walk at dusk, and I took some fairly good pictures of Big Ben all lit up, just after sunset:

i loved you, well, never mind...

On a music forum that I visit regularly, a group of folks are discussing a great album each week during 2009. The first album that was selected was Big Star's Radio City (1974). Here's what I had to say about it:

When I saw this would be the first album for the first installment of the Listening Group discussion, I expected that most of the folks here would respond very favorably to it, since I remember being really taken with it when I first heard it about fifteen years ago. So I've been a little surprised to see that it isn't more well-received than it is, but I've been interested in reading why people do or don't love this album.

I fall on the side of loving it, even if I don't think it is a perfect album. I think it is a very strong album, although not as good as #1 Record. When I began listening to it again for this discussion, I also noticed the unfortunate mixing. It's an album that could be so very rich--with songs that might have had the thick lush sonics of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. But because it doesn't, it often sounds much flatter than it should. That said, this jangle-pop sound doesn't necessarily lend itself to a richly textured quality--much in the way that R.E.M. and The Replacements (the obvious Big Star progeny) don't.

There are some great songs here--"O My Soul" is a great album opener, and the bass lines in "Life Is White" and "You Get What You Deserve" are really lovely. "September Gurls" is a contender for best Big Star song (although I guess I'd ultimately give "Thirteen" first place). The harmonica doesn't bother me as much as it does others. It seems to echo the aching, broken, at times desperate, vocals that are featured on many of the songs here. My least favorite are the swaggering rockers--"She's a Mover" (T. Rex nails this kind of thing much better) and "Mod Lang" (a clear nod to the Stones, but with less convincing vocals)--as I think Big Star more successfully and so beautifully conveys young male amorous heartbreak and frustration. Big Star just doesn't do cock-rock all that well.

"What's Going Ahn" is one my favorites here: even while the singer asserts that he's got a handle on how the world works and what love is, the "oh nooos" at the song's ending fly in the face of such self-assurance. And I'm in the minority in being moved by "Morpha Too" and "I'm in Love With a Girl." Along with "Thirteen," these strike me as charming, simple, wistful ballads that evoke that painful period between one's teens and adulthood when love seems at once so real and so impossible. As weird as "Morpha Too" is, it seems to look toward the more experimental masterpieces "Kangaroo" and "Holocaust" that show up on the third album.

"September Gurls" is just a lovely song that is both poppy and plaintive at the same time. "I loved you, well, never mind / I've been crying all the time" is a touching confession that works against the upbeat summertime quality (as do the references to fall and winter that work to position boys and girls differently and suggest that they can never really catch up with one another, nor can they revisit summer, which the song recalls, even as the lyrics suggest it has already passed). It begins to great effect, works a wonderful melody against a compelling bass counterpoint, and the simple guitar solo at about 1:18 is terrific. It's not as good a song as "God Only Knows," but it draws upon a similar sensibility that acknowledges reasons both to celebrate and complain about the complicated nature of love.

I'd give this four stars if I didn't still have such a nostalgic soft spot for it, but because I do, I can go as high as four and 1/2.

mp3: "September Gurls"

clerkenwell & spitalfields

On Jan. 8, Shane and I meandered through Clerkenwell and Spitalfields, discovering Brick Lane along the way. We chose to do these walks because our students are staying in Clerkenwell, and we wanted to be able to tell them a little about the neighborhood they would living in for the next three months. We learned that the name Clerkenwell comes from the the words "Clerk's Well," and that, although the neighborhood has recently become a desirable place to live, it hasn't always been so. Dickens set much of Oliver Twist here, which is a fortunate coincidence, as my students will be reading that novel in a couple of weeks. Highlights of the walk included the Sadler's Wells Theatre, the area around Smithfield Meat Market, and the priory church of St Bartholomew the Great, which has recently been featured in many television shows and films. We didn't go into the church, as we were feeling cheap and didn't want to pay the admission charge. Nevertheless, I plan to go back, perhaps to check out a musical performance there. We did, however, visit the small museum at St John's Gate, an interesting early sixteenth-century structure that is the remains of a monastery that was on that site.

While walking through Clerkenwell, I found a house featuring a common misspelling of my surname:

That look on my face must be one of contempt for those who somehow feel "Benyon" is a viable appelation. Bah, humbug.

We then took the Spitalfields walk, which took us past Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, and through Spitalfields Market. At the outset, we caught a pretty good view of the Gherkin (aka the Swiss RE building):


Brick Lane is fascinating, and I'm eager to try some curries when next I'm there. Brick Lane is the heart of "Bangla-City," where folks of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Indian descent live. It has historically been a place where outsiders of various kinds have found a home, including the Huguenots and Askenazy Jews. Along a small side street, we found some very hip clothing stores, hairdressers, bars, and Rough Trade East. The original Rough Trade shop is right in my neighborhood off Portobello Road. I don't know why I failed to take many pictures of Brick Lane, but here's a a bit of graffiti I found on one of the walls along the roads leading from Brick Lane to Spitalfields:


That night, Shane and I went back to Sadler's Wells to see Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorheads. I loved Bourne's Swan Lake, which I saw a couple of times when it first showed in L.A., but his adaptation of Edward Scissorhands is downright dreadful. The production is cloyingly sentimental, and it relies on the most over-used stereotypes of American middle-class culture. The music is uninteresting, and the choreography is just plain corny. The dancers grimace and grin in the most obvious ways, and the movement is comprised of uninteresting pantomime and slapstick gimmicks. We got cheap tickets through the TKTS booth on Leicester Square, and our seats were good, but five minutes into the performance, I thought to myself, "Oh no. What have I gotten myself into?" I survived the ordeal, but the following photo records the evidence of the toll it took on me:

walk this way (holland park & notting hill)

I've discovered a great way to see London by foot, and I've tromping all over town ever since I arrived. Shane told me about a series of free podcasts by a man named Robert Wright, available through iTunes. Each podcast is a roughly one hour walk through a part of London, which Wright conducts in real time, as he records his description of the walk as he wanders the area he visits. So, we've downloaded the various walks, and walk the tour as we listen to our iPods. We began with the first walk through Holland Park, an area not to far from where I am staying, and we've completed over a dozen since then. You can learn about the walks and download them from this website. You can also subscribe to the podcast through iTunes. Here are some photos of the walks we've done so far.


This is the Kyoto Japanese Garden in Holland Park, which is a favorite with locals. We found people walking their dogs, jogging, exercises, and otherwise enjoying the place. It's beautiful even in the winter, so I can only imagine what it's like in more temperate weather. The park is home to the Holland House, which is a seventeenth-century mansion that is now the location for one of the most popular youth hostels in London.

We then took the walk through Notting Hill, which is the neighborhood where I'm staying. We walked past an apartment building where Dusty Springfield lived for some time. It was being renovated and covered with scaffolding, so we couldn't see it very well. Still, it was a thrill to imagine her looking out the window with her blonde Dusty-in-Memphis 'do. Notting Hill is the place where the piggeries and the potteries once were. So swine once roamed the area, and potters created their wares here. This is one of the few bottle kilns left in the city:

(That would be Miss Shane admiring the kiln.)

And here is a photo of the meats you can purchase at Lidgates, one of the most famous butchers in London:


Just so these posts don't beome crazy long, I'll break them up into bite-size pieces. I'll try to get caught up with the walks we've done and keep current from then on out.

london journal

It's a new year, and I'm starting a new role as co-director of CSU, Fresno's London Semester program. This seems as good a reason as any to get back into blogging--we'll just see how it goes.

I arrived in London yesterday, but not without much ado. My co-director, Shane, and I were scheduled to fly out of Fresno on the morning of Jan. 4, connect to a London flight at SFO, and arrive in London early in the morning on Jan. 5. When we arrived at the Fresno Airport, we learned that our Fresno-San Francisco flight was delayed because the plane hadn't arrived from Vegas. We were worried at hearing this news, because we had a quick layover in SF. We soon learned that the flight would be delayed indefinitely, and we realized we wouldn't make our connection to London. However, when we inquired at the ticketing desk, we also learned that there were no seats on any United flight to London--leaving any airport in North America--until Jan. 6. This would have put us in London only two days before our students were to arrive, and we had many tasks to accomplish in London before our students showed up. We found a sympathetic United ticketing agent who booked us on an already overbooked SF to London flight leaving later that evening. So, we awaited the plane that had been delayed in Vegas, and when it arrived, we boarded and readied to fly to San Francisco. But just as we settled into our seats, our pilot announced that the altimeter wasn't functioning, and that all passengers would have to disembark so that the plane could be taken to a hangar for repairs. When we asked at the desk when another plane would be flying to San Francisco, we learned that none were scheduled that would get us there in time to make our connection to London.

Panicked, we reviewed our alternatives and decided that we would have just enough time to take a rental car to San Francisco and make the overbooked flight--and then cross our fingers in hopes that we would be assigned seats. Shane rented the car, I hauled our luggage to the curb, and we sped off for San Francisco. And when I say "sped" I mean like the proverbial bat out of hell, as Shane, who is driver of maniacal proclivities, takes to highway driving like an intoxicated but determined cheetah. I spent the three plus hours of the trip shouting "80! You cannot exceed 80 miles an hour!" And "If you get pulled over, you won't be worrying about a citation, because I will have strangled you!" Careening into the Enterprise rental car center at SFO, we raced to the International terminal, and found our way to the United counter. I was certain we would be told that the flight is overbooked (we'd been told it was) and that we would have to settle with standby status; but Our Lady of Airline Travel must have had mercy upon us, as the kind fellow at the counter took our bags and handed us a couple of boarding passes with blessed seat assignments. What's more, we were both granted aisle seats! (Shane, of course, wrangled for an upgrade, but to no avail. I think it serves him right that he ended up in economy, while I luxuriated in Economy Plus.)

The flight to London was the most comfortable, relaxing international flight I've ever experienced. I sat next to a lad in his late teens with prideful locks, who preened himself the entire ten hour flight, but this was more amusing than it was annoying. I even slept that final five hours of the flight, and for me, that's unheard of. (I supposed I could go on about the singularly unappetizing meatloaf dinner, but I don't want to come across as unappreciative, so I won't.)

Upon landing, we gathered our bags, readily found a cab, and made our way to Vincent House, our lodgings for the next three months. Vincent House is a a residence for professionals working in London. Its founder was a woman who lived to see her dream of providing acceptable housing for London-based professionals come true. Some feed the poor, some rescue mistreated pets, others feel obliged to attend to the pressing needs of professionals who prefer to reside in lodgings replete with a "club like atmosphere."

And it is, in fact, a fine place to stay: on the ground floor is a dining facility (two meals daily come with price of lodging), a lounge, a bar, and a snooker table. (I don't know the first thing about snooker, but it sure is an amusing word to say aloud.) The rooms are small and spare, but comfortable, and they are cleaned daily. What's more, we have our own loos.

Here are a couple of pics of my room:



Here's the view from my window onto Pembridge Square in Notting Hill:


And here's a picture of some toilet paper that I very much dislike:


I'm beginning to learn the dos and don'ts of Vincent House: last night one choice for the main entree was leg of Guinea Hen. And when I placed two of these small morsels on my plate, a dining hall operative came to me and decreed, "Tonight I'll let you take two. But only tonight." I was a little taken aback, as the Guinea legs weren't what you'd call plentiful, and only two minutes later, the staff whisked them away, along with all the other bins of uneaten food on the buffet. I guess it's a matter of principle here: you shouldn't get accustomed to such extravagances. On the bright side, the enforcement of such policies just might have the effect of my losing some weight. More anon.