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millionreasonsLondon is open once again so we walk down to Clapton and visit the Round Chapel, once a church and now a community centre with an organ.
Onto the bus with a quick stop off at Look Mum No Hands for a coffee and rather delicious beetroot and chocolate cake. We attempt to hire aBoris Barclays Ken bike to get from Old St to Holborn but when we put our pre-registered and unlocked keys in the bike slot, they don't work. We try two other stands, same result. On ringing the helpline, the man Dave speaks to says he'll call him back. Does he? Does he heck.
So we walk to Kingsway to visit the Swedenborg Society, whichworships celebrates the life of Emanuel Swedenborg, Christian-Mystic-Scientist, of whom Blake was a follower. There's a Stoke Newington connection; the vicar of St Mary's Old church and namer of the eponymous park, Augustus Clissold, was a member and benefactor of the society. There are also prose poems by Ian Sinclair on the wall and free films about the afterlife showing (Jacob's Ladder, Afterlife, and, um, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey).
Pop into St George's, the last Hawksmoor church to be built (named after George I who is toga clad on the steeple), which features a lovely chandelier and wooden altar. Stop off for lunch at Moolis and then onto St Anne's on Wardour Street to climb the vertiginous tower. I thought there'd be a view, but it's just dust, chicken wire and pigeon feathers. We do get to see the mechanical parts of the clock chime the hour, however.
Realise that everywhere we've been to so far has been religious, and when we get onto Whitehall I remember that to most of England it's not Open House Weekend, its Pope Weekend. The noise of the police helicopters is awful and the roads are thronged with police and not-very-many people. I'm not sure if the Pope has just been or is just coming; there are both protesters and the faithful but not very many of either. I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of my hero Peter Tatchell, but I later find out that he's in Twickenham.
Push through the non-crowd and cross Trafalgar Square whose fourth plinth now holds a ship in a bottle. There are also robot arms (I too have a robot arm, made out of the bike/art print David bought earlier).
Onto the Banqueting house, once Charles I's dining room, now a Palladian palace for tourists to tick off. Sit awhile and stare at the Rubens roof.
Last destination of the day is the Foreign Office, a neo-classical dream in turquoise and gold. Into the Locarno Suite, which sounds like the back room of a working men's club where they hold the meat raffle, but is in reality a series of rooms around a beautiful indoor piazza. There is a questionnaire at the end of the tour; I consider suggesting that they sell the building to a zillionaire and move the FCO to the civic centre in Northampton. After all, we're all in this together! The toilets are very nice, no flimsy paper towels for Hague and co., it's Dyson airblades all the way.
In the evening, we go out to the Peking Palace to celebrate Fennings Fest '10. Dan is turning 40 and it's pointed out to me that out of the people there, I am the next to reach my fifth decade in this thing we call life. This is really quite terrifying; I thought there was still a large buffer of people between me and 40. Anyway, we eat fake meat, drink non-alcoholic drinks (Dan suggests we get some soya brandy as a digestif) and watch the Supreme Master on TV. Afterwards, we go to one of Holloway Road's Irish pubs. We leave because they're playing loud music and go into another, quieter one. The band starts five minutes after we arrive, playing out-of-tune versions of Route 66, Sweet Caroline etc etc. I've just read a book by Dara O Briain in which he claims that English pubs always have some distraction: food, pub quiz, meat raffle, but in Ireland you just go to the pub for a yarn and a drink. Not so, you can't go into any Irish pub without a fiddle starting up (or in yer actual Eire, Irish rebel songs). The regulars are dancing but I leave to get the bus. I think my uber-Englishness (reserved, un-emotional, complainy) does not work well with the craic. I could not understand the sudden Celticphilia in the 90s when the Commitments and Roddy Doyle and River Dance and The Corrs and O'Neills and other awful things were suddenly very fashionable, unless it was some kind of collective guilt-fest reparation for the prejudice and harassment Irish people faced previous to this. I blame Bono. And Geldof. And the Pope.
Sunday, we start off at Stoke Newington Town Hall, built in the 1930s and restored earlier this year. Before that it was a Manor House. Surprisingly for Hackney Council, the whole restoration project seems to have been carried out rather beautifully and as ever with 1930s buildings, thedevil angel is in the details.
The guide tells us that the balcony was closed to the public at council meetings after someone threw a show at a councillor. Plus ca change and all that. Onto another art deco gem, the Landsdowne Club. I do like poking around the stomping grounds of the posh. The guide tells us that in the early 2000s, the members got rid of the secretary and chair and staged a revolution, raising funds to re-gilt the gold leafing, doing up the rooms and setting up fundraising for future restoration work. This, according to our guide, created a virtuous circle as members flocked back and new members joined. Reminds me of the issues facing the social club Dave's parents belong to - they don't have enought money to bring in the bands and entertainment, so people don't turn up to spend at the bar and so they don't have enough money. The working and upper-middle classes have clubs, what do the bourgeois have? Book clubs and farmers' markets and dinner parties, I suppose. I have a look at the magazines available to read: Super Yacht World, Imbibe, Opera Monthly and Mayfair Resident. No New Internationalist or Marxism Today.
Last visit (after a restorative coffee at the outdoor Sacred Cafe) is the Royal Ballet School, home of all my Noel Streatfield fantasies. I so wanted to be a ballerina when I was a small girl, probably because they are the epitome of femininity and grace, everything I wasn't (add flexible to the list nowadays). We watch some tiny, impossibly young ballet dancers going through their paces, nosy around the wardrobe room and then walk across the Bridge of Aspiration which links the ballet school to the Royal Ballet Company.
And then home to our 1950s modernist council flat (some original features). Maybe we should open up next year?
Onto the bus with a quick stop off at Look Mum No Hands for a coffee and rather delicious beetroot and chocolate cake. We attempt to hire a
So we walk to Kingsway to visit the Swedenborg Society, which
Pop into St George's, the last Hawksmoor church to be built (named after George I who is toga clad on the steeple), which features a lovely chandelier and wooden altar. Stop off for lunch at Moolis and then onto St Anne's on Wardour Street to climb the vertiginous tower. I thought there'd be a view, but it's just dust, chicken wire and pigeon feathers. We do get to see the mechanical parts of the clock chime the hour, however.
Realise that everywhere we've been to so far has been religious, and when we get onto Whitehall I remember that to most of England it's not Open House Weekend, its Pope Weekend. The noise of the police helicopters is awful and the roads are thronged with police and not-very-many people. I'm not sure if the Pope has just been or is just coming; there are both protesters and the faithful but not very many of either. I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of my hero Peter Tatchell, but I later find out that he's in Twickenham.
Push through the non-crowd and cross Trafalgar Square whose fourth plinth now holds a ship in a bottle. There are also robot arms (I too have a robot arm, made out of the bike/art print David bought earlier).
Onto the Banqueting house, once Charles I's dining room, now a Palladian palace for tourists to tick off. Sit awhile and stare at the Rubens roof.
Last destination of the day is the Foreign Office, a neo-classical dream in turquoise and gold. Into the Locarno Suite, which sounds like the back room of a working men's club where they hold the meat raffle, but is in reality a series of rooms around a beautiful indoor piazza. There is a questionnaire at the end of the tour; I consider suggesting that they sell the building to a zillionaire and move the FCO to the civic centre in Northampton. After all, we're all in this together! The toilets are very nice, no flimsy paper towels for Hague and co., it's Dyson airblades all the way.
In the evening, we go out to the Peking Palace to celebrate Fennings Fest '10. Dan is turning 40 and it's pointed out to me that out of the people there, I am the next to reach my fifth decade in this thing we call life. This is really quite terrifying; I thought there was still a large buffer of people between me and 40. Anyway, we eat fake meat, drink non-alcoholic drinks (Dan suggests we get some soya brandy as a digestif) and watch the Supreme Master on TV. Afterwards, we go to one of Holloway Road's Irish pubs. We leave because they're playing loud music and go into another, quieter one. The band starts five minutes after we arrive, playing out-of-tune versions of Route 66, Sweet Caroline etc etc. I've just read a book by Dara O Briain in which he claims that English pubs always have some distraction: food, pub quiz, meat raffle, but in Ireland you just go to the pub for a yarn and a drink. Not so, you can't go into any Irish pub without a fiddle starting up (or in yer actual Eire, Irish rebel songs). The regulars are dancing but I leave to get the bus. I think my uber-Englishness (reserved, un-emotional, complainy) does not work well with the craic. I could not understand the sudden Celticphilia in the 90s when the Commitments and Roddy Doyle and River Dance and The Corrs and O'Neills and other awful things were suddenly very fashionable, unless it was some kind of collective guilt-fest reparation for the prejudice and harassment Irish people faced previous to this. I blame Bono. And Geldof. And the Pope.
Sunday, we start off at Stoke Newington Town Hall, built in the 1930s and restored earlier this year. Before that it was a Manor House. Surprisingly for Hackney Council, the whole restoration project seems to have been carried out rather beautifully and as ever with 1930s buildings, the
The guide tells us that the balcony was closed to the public at council meetings after someone threw a show at a councillor. Plus ca change and all that. Onto another art deco gem, the Landsdowne Club. I do like poking around the stomping grounds of the posh. The guide tells us that in the early 2000s, the members got rid of the secretary and chair and staged a revolution, raising funds to re-gilt the gold leafing, doing up the rooms and setting up fundraising for future restoration work. This, according to our guide, created a virtuous circle as members flocked back and new members joined. Reminds me of the issues facing the social club Dave's parents belong to - they don't have enought money to bring in the bands and entertainment, so people don't turn up to spend at the bar and so they don't have enough money. The working and upper-middle classes have clubs, what do the bourgeois have? Book clubs and farmers' markets and dinner parties, I suppose. I have a look at the magazines available to read: Super Yacht World, Imbibe, Opera Monthly and Mayfair Resident. No New Internationalist or Marxism Today.
Last visit (after a restorative coffee at the outdoor Sacred Cafe) is the Royal Ballet School, home of all my Noel Streatfield fantasies. I so wanted to be a ballerina when I was a small girl, probably because they are the epitome of femininity and grace, everything I wasn't (add flexible to the list nowadays). We watch some tiny, impossibly young ballet dancers going through their paces, nosy around the wardrobe room and then walk across the Bridge of Aspiration which links the ballet school to the Royal Ballet Company.
And then home to our 1950s modernist council flat (some original features). Maybe we should open up next year?
