It was a chilly morning so, I hopped on the Picadilly Line for the quick trip to Covent Garden Tube Station on my way to the Courtald Gallery at Somerset House. I had left myself some extra time so that I could check around the stalls at Covent Garden for an item one of my SUNY Oneonta besties had asked me to look out for and to give myself some time to visit the shop at the London Transport Museum, just outside the old Covent Garden Market. With great forbearance, I escaped the shop without buying anything, a rare occurrence for me.

The Covent Garden area is rich in history. Most people know that Eliza Doolittle, the flower seller from Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’ and Lerner’s adaption ‘My Fair Lady.’ But its literary references include Dickens and many others. The Bow Street Magistrates Court (now a hotel and museum), the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, Saint Paul’s Church are all historic building in the streets around the former flower and vegetable market that is now a popular tourist attraction selling all kinds of souvenirs. It has restaurants, musicians and the Royal Opera house is nearby too.

As I left the London Transport Museum, I passed the Marquess of Anglesey Pub in the upstairs restaurant of which I met my UK best pals Nigel and Gwynne many years ago. I also passed the former locations of restaurants I fondly recall. But that too is London, the city that has some landmarks that stay and some that stay only in our memories. I soon made my way to the Strand and across that busy road and walked through an unassuming arch into a courtyard for which I was not prepared. It had been enough years since my last visit to the Courtald Gallery that I had completely forgotten about the splendor of Somerset House in which it is located. Somerset House has a long and illustrious history. Earlier versions were royal residences and important sites in English and UK history. Today’s building has more of a governmental history, but an important one. It was so important that the German’s saw fit to damage it severely during World War II. Here are two exterior views of this beautiful historic building.

The Courtald’s collection contains masterpieces from the Middle Ages into the Twentieth Century. My visit focused on the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. I found a three-piece depiction of the Prometheus Myth to be quite interesting. It was painted by the Austrian Oskar Kokoschka, a contemporary of Klimt.

The Impressionist collection contains paintings and some small sculptures by many favorites. I found the way they were presented, a bit too formal. The lighting seemed too dark. Some that I should have enjoyed more, seemed “flat.”

“Autumn Effect at Argenteuil” by Monet did standout to me. Seurat’s “The Bridge at Courbevoie” was excellent example of pointillist technique and Seurat’s unique style and detail, a delight to visit. I also thought that “The Haystacks: by Gauguin stood out in the collection. Degas’ “Dancer looking at the Right Sole of Her Foot,” is one of his exquisite small sculptures that made this visit a pleasing one too.

The final piece I want to mention is the large piece that hangs over the grand staircase that leads to the top Collections floor where the Impressionist and Post-Impressionists are located. This piece is called “Unmoored from Her Reflection it is a 2021 work by Cecily Brown (born 1969). I found it innovative and exciting, a piece that speaks to the future of art, filled with color and wonder.

After a quick visit to the Art Cafe on the Ground Level of the Courtald (a lovely facility with good coffee), I made my way toward the Temple Tube Station, passing, as I made the short walk, this interesting sign above a locked gateway on a building at King’s College, London.

According to the National Trust, they are not “Roman, but in fact the remaining portion of a cistern built in 1612 to feed a fountain in the gardens of the old Somerset House, then a royal palace. After a long period of neglect and decay, following the demolition of the fountain, they were brought back into use in the 1770s as a public cold plunge bath. They can be viewed by making a request to the Westminster Council. I took the Tube on to visit another favorite London market, Spitalfields, that I have visited and posted about before on my Facebook page. I will post this picture of Christ Church Spitalfields, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and consecrated in 1729. And the picture of this interesting Arts and Crafts building that was the home of Dr. Jimmy Mallon, CH, Warden of Toynbee Hall, Champion of Social Reform (according to the Blue Plaque erected there.

As I neared the Tube Station for my return to Bloomsbury, I noticed a lovely garden built in the midst of the ruins of a church of some kind, I thought. After taking a few pictures, I found a plaque identifying the place as remaining parts of the Christophen Wren designed Christ Church built to replace the Greyfriars Church, left after the dissolution of the monasteries. The Greyfriars church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Christ Church was one of 14 Wren churches destroyed by Nazi bombing during WWII. The garden funded by a private company is a peaceful haven in the busy center of the city.

And so, it goes in a city where history is around every corner.

I travelled into the unchartered waters of Hackney in East London for the first time since the Patio Set, the band my friend James Grant was then a member of had a record launch there, around 15 years ago! Today’s visit involved records, but more record keeping, as my local NHS surgery in Bloomsbury sent me off to Saint Leonard’s Hospital in the Borough of Hackney to clarify some record keeping and, possibly, get my Covid-19 Booster. Part year residents, it seems, get special treatment. When my Uber driver turned into this place, my only thought was of Paddy Chayefsky’s 1971 dark comic classic movie, “The Hospital.”

I wondered how long my future would be. From the barred front entrance, there was adequate signage to both the Covid clinic, for me, and the Polio vaccination clinic for the nice Romanian family I met. After our excursion around the huge complex, we found our way inside and the always remarkably friendly and capable NHS staff helped me through the paperwork process. Two different women were patient with me as I tried to remember my UK post code, a jumble of letters and numbers that I always struggle with and then trying to find my UK pay-as-you-go phone’s number. This is my ’emergency phone that I only bought for NHS calls because they can’t call international numbers. Anyway, I finally found it and eventually, was able to be jabbed! Its Moderna this time, a big change for this guy. I’d been a Pfizer man before this.

As I mentioned, this is an old hospital. It has roots as a workhouse for the poor of Shore ditch, London. The building where the clinic was held was a grand old 19th Century one. I noticed the details of the high ceilings and large windows. I mentioned this to the woman who was about to “jab” me. She told me that

the room was once the hospital cafeteria.

The jab search completed; it was on to the cultural activity of the day. Today, this involved a trip to the Southbank of Thames to the National Theatre complex where I would be seeing a matinee performance of Arthur Miller’s classic, “The Crucible” at the Olivier Theatre. This play, for people of my age, is one of those touchstones. I was born during the McCarthy era. Senator Joseph “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy, his henchman Roy Cohn, and journalist Edward R. Murrow and the roles they played in the tragedy and triumphs of the rise and fall of McCarthy’s bizarre crusade against non-existent communist cells in the Federal government, including the U.S. Army were the place and time where Arthur Miller saw history repeating itself. His words, as true today, as they were when Mr. Miller first published the play in 1953. Generations of people have seen its relevance in America, and I am sure, around the world. We certainly turned to it during the Viet Nam War and Civil Rights Protests of the 1960s and early 1970s, the attempts at political repression culminating with the police riot at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. Many have seen the parallels again when free speech has been denied to the people of countries around the world From Russia to China, to the Middle East. Today, Americans, again feel that our freedoms are again being threatened by the hysteria of those who claim to wish to protect the civil law by using what they believe to be their holy laws.

This was a good production. I lament the diminution of the character of Tituba, the young, enslaved girl who, in earlier version was given a much clearer role in bringing the magic and spells she had learned from her elders to the young Puritan daughters. chafing under the restrictions under the restrictions on which they lived. This was a “Crucible,” focused on the crime of failing to see what one does not wish to see and the sins of omission that often worse than commission. These, of course are the problems that we see eating our societies and democracies away today. I cannot stress, enough, though, that any production of this particular work still has the words of this great American playwright to sustain it. Whatever the issues may have been with accents, I left that theatre, reminded that we must find a way to awaken the minds of those who cannot see where we are headed or we, too will live with devastating consequences.

Shall we discuss the latest step toward my Covid booster? I finally got through to the NHS information line after a frustrating several hours figuring out the strange rules and rubrics of my UK pay-as-you-go phone’s top-up process. This morning, I called a special Covid Vaccination line and found that because I had received my Spring 2023 booster in Florida, I would first have to visit a hospital several miles away with several pieces of information. If all the information added up and they had an appropriate vaccine available, I might get vaccinated on the spot. If not, a wait of 10 days shall ensue. If nothing else, it will get me out of bed and dressed early on a Saturday.

My adventure of the day was my journey to the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art. If you plan a visit, it’s an easy trip on the Victoria line to Highbury and Islington, (one stop past Kings Cross) on the train toward Walthamstow . There are quite a few steps to ascend from the train to exit the station. You exit the station to a large plaza with a restaurant, shops and nearby cafes. I crossed a well-marked set of crosswalks to start down Canonbury Road, I passed Highbury Corner Garden, a strip of garden adjacent to

the roundabout at the north end of Compton Terrace, it commemorates those who were killed, injured or bereaved as a result of a 1944 bomb that caused significant loss of life. The Estorick Collection is just a short walk away.

Once I reached the building, my memory of a previous visit several years ago with my friends Nigel and Gwynne was confirmed. I entered the building through a lovely conservatory that led into a lovely caffe, offering wonderful Italian specialties. The walls were adorned with a wonderful collection of posters from previous exhibitions.

I particularly liked these because they were so evocative of the style that I always associate with the Italian cinema during its neo-realism or golden age after the second world war.

The special exhibition on the main floor of the Collection’s rather impressive, listed premises was titled “Luigi Pericle Rediscovered”. The Collection’s website and material provided to visitors describes Pericle in this way: “Luigi Pericle (1916-2001) was a fascinating and singular artist. A Swiss painter of Italian origin, he was also an illustrator, writer and a scholar of esoteric philosophies such as astrology, theosophy and alchemy. During the early 1960s his intense, enigmatic and multilayered imagery was the subject of numerous exhibitions in Britain, where it was greatly admired by important figures such as Herbert Read and Ben Nicholson.” He seemed to have stopped public appearances in the last part of his life, while maintaining contact with friends and fellow artists. But the exhibition’s use of the term “Rediscovered” seems appropriate in that they say that it was when his home was sold in 2016, ‘a treasure trove’ of his work was discovered, beginning the process of bringing it to public view. For me, his work was fascinating, but a bit like coming to terms with a new engineering or scientific concept, as I often did in my career at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I could see that there was elegance to the concept, and I could understand how the process or procedure, but getting to a real understanding was hard work. At the end, it was worthwhile. Below are some examples of pieces from various periods in his career.

These designs obviously meant a great deal to him. The later ones increasingly reminded me of Science Fiction movies of the decades following his death. I can only wonder if his communication with like-minded artists might have resulted in some cross-pollination into the entertainment world.

This wonderful collection also provides a bit of aerobic exercise as it challenges visitors to visit its permanent collection on two additional levels with more Modern Italian Art.

This is just a sampling of the wonderful collection on the upper floors. I recommend a visit to this lovely place. You can get a great snack or lunch and their shop is outstanding. The fellow staffing it was friendly, and if he wasn’t busy was happy to engage in conversation. I noticed an old favorite book, “Italian Folktales, by Italo Calvino. I mentioned how pleased I was to see it in print and still available. This led us to a brief discussion of Calvino’s works and the period he worked in. I also left with a delightful poster about an Italian Cinema exhibition.

Bonus London Fact

While ‘fact checking’ the information on the memorial sign at the garden mentioned near the beginning of this blog, I came across an interesting fact the neighborhood in Bloomsbury, London, that I have called home for three months of the year, for each of the last several years. I’ve mentioned The Brunswick Centre, a brutalist style complex of accommodations and shopping that sits in the middle of the neighborhood. Here are pictures of some of the stores on the left and the exterior on Marchmont Street Side, showing some of the flats.

What I found in my surfing was that the original urban plan was to basically demolish the whole neighborhood of lovely 18th and 19th Century buildings and replace them with more structures like the Brunswick Centre.

Building like these would be gone. How the good guys finally won, to borrow a from an old Jimmy Breslin book title, is because Britain’s Territorial Army (like America’s Army Reserves), owned a building right across the street from the Brunswick Center and refused to move. They are still there, and I think every neighbor owes them a debt of gratitude for saving this lovely place.

Last year, getting my Covid seasonal shot (or ‘jab’ as it’s called here) was incredibly easy on the NHS. Not so much this year, but I persevere. My first attempts were to seek out the pharmacies and drop in sites listed on the NHS Site. Alright, I thought, let’s get on the trusty Tube and head up to Camden Town. If nothing else, Camden Town, home of the Camden Market, is always an interesting place.

There were many shops like these, even a fellow from the Ministry of Silly Walks, but alas, no Covid jabs on offer in Camden. In fact, the site recommended on the NHS site was a building now undergoing complete renovation! Slightly dazed and confused people walking near the Camden Town Tube station do not garner even a second look, though and I just moved on. So, I got back on the tube and headed south. As it was a pleasant afternoon, I decided to get off at Euston Station and walked back down the Euston Road toward my flat. As I did, I noticed a lovely older building and, in the distance, the spires of Saint Pancras Hotel and Rail Station.

I think I am now at that point in my annual London sojourn where I start getting attacks of “pre-nostalgia.” The two photos above are signs of that. I begin to notice the beauty of the urban settings I have been living in and near. To me, that is the joy that I find in London and most European cities. In spite of wars, and civil unrest, these cities have survived and maintained their beauty. Bostonians, New Yorkers, and Philadelphians have done a good job at home saving some of America’s oldest post-European contact cities. Far too much was destroyed in DC in the name of “urban renewal.” So many of the cities of the south and the west in the US are simply new. But the US is a stunningly beautiful country too. I can recall the magic of driving up Interstate 395 toward Washington, DC each morning and never tiring of the view of our national monuments and the U.S. Capitol. I guess this “little meander” is just ,y way of urging all to travel, find places you love and love the place you live.

So, the “jab hunt” continued the next day. This trip took me to Drury Lane in the heart of Covent Garden and the West End, the London theatre district. This time, the pharmacy, part of a local chain, was there and open. It advertised flu jabs on one window but on another had a sign that said, “no inoculations.” When I asked, they said that they might have some vaccines in a week, maybe not. “Oh well,” as my friend Sally would say.

“Well then”, I said, what’s the next church on my list?” I hopped onto the Tube and after a few up and down the stairs at transfer points, I arrived at Sloane Square. People of a certain age may immediately associate this place with the Sloane Ranger, a certain, young, wealthy person from that area. One only needs to admire the lovely architecture and homes to appreciate that this is not a place for the common folk. It is the home of many fancy stores and the Royal Court Theatre where I have seen many fine productions.

I, however, was there to find Holy Trinity Church, another Anglo Catholic Church rumored to have some lovely, stained-glass windows and internal features. This first picture is taken from the internet because

the church is on a busy narrow road, difficult to capture the entire building. On the church’s website Peyton Skipwith describes the building this way (I use a rather significant portion of the History section from their sight because it is so full of historical names and dates):

“Behind its magnificent red brick and stone facade, reminiscent of collegiate architecture of the late 16th and early 17th-century, is a veritable jewel-box of stained glass, sculpture and highly wrought metalwork by many of the finest artists and craftsmen of the late nineteenth century. The 5th Earl Cadogan and his wife Beatrix were responsible for the decision to replace an earlier church building and, presumably, for the choice of the architect, John Dando Sedding (1838-1891). They couldn’t have chosen better.

Sedding had trained in the offices of G.E Street (1824-1881), the most prolific and influential ecclesiastical architect of the previous generation, in whose offices William Morris, Philip Webb and Norman Shaw had also trained. Sedding was one of the prime movers of what became known as the Arts and Crafts Movement, which drew much of its early inspiration from the example and teachings Pugin and Ruskin. At the 1888 Liverpool Art Congress Sedding, in a veritable roll-call of the advanced architects and designers of the day, declared ‘We should have had no Morris, no Burges, no Shaw, no Webb, no Bodley, no Rossetti, no Crane, but for Pugin.’

The first thing that impresses visitors to Holy Trinity is the wealth of stained glass, particularly the great east window designed by Burne-Jones, the largest window Morris & Company ever made; equally impressive are the windows by William Blake Richmond and Christopher Whall in the North and South aisles respectively. Not quite as showy, but just as impressive, is the range of sculpture, particularly F.W Pomeroy’s bronze angels on the chancel screen and his sculptured reliefs above and on the choir stalls. The work of other major sculptors from what became known as the ‘New Sculpture’ movement are also well represented – Onslow Ford, H.H Armstead, Harry Bates and John Tweed, who carved the marble reredos – all add to the richness of the interior, as does the wealth of different marbles employed, especially on the pulpit and in the Lady Chapel….

During World War Two the church was hit by several incendiary bombs, one at least bursting in the nave, causing considerable structural damage. Shortage of money and materials post-war meant that it took several decades of work to effect repairs and the church was closed except for sunday matins. Given the expense and the deep unfashionability of Victorian architecture at that period, there was considerable pressure to demolish rather than restore the building, and it was only saved from this second threat by a vigorous campaign mounted by the Victorian Society and Sir John Betjeman who penned the following pointed and poignant verse:

Bishop, archdeacon, rector, wardens, mayor Guardians of Chelsea’s noblest house of prayer.You your church’s vastness deplore
‘Should we not sell and give it to the poor?’
Recall, despite your practical suggestion
Which the disciple was who asked that question.

This hit home and Chelsea’s ‘noblest house of prayer’ was saved for the benefit of all and the glory of God.

Peyton Skipwith“

OK, it ‘Mark in London’ again. I just loved Sir John Betjeman’s little zinger at the end, “sure, you can follow Judas Iscariot’s lead…or you can rebuild this unique and beautiful church destroyed by Nazi bombs.” Putting guilt and shame to their very best uses. The pictures below start with one I took upon entering. These are followed by the windows to the right of the altar, and the old pulpit. Then we see the lovely metal and fillagree work around and above the choir. The magnicient stained-glass above the altar is given a close-up, as is the metal work in front of the altar. Then we come down the other aisle and see more stained-glass and metal work around the organ. There is a lovely Baptismal Font in the back of the church suggesting that this Anglo-Catholic community, as many Roman Catholic Communities do now, welcome new members at the entry of the church as they enter their new lives, cloaked in white garments and cloaked in the protection of Christ. It is a lovely tradition, with many variations, but one that still touches my heart. Two “pictures of pictures” showing the damage wrought by the WWII bombings and the reconstruction work, and finally, my best attempt at an outside view of this lovely church’s Arts and Crafts exterior.

This is very much a working parish community. It has an elementary school attached to it and it was alive with volunteers and staff working during my visit. There was a sense of life within the worship space, and I felt that the beauty of the art was still alive and being appreciated daily, not always the case in underused or underappreciated places of worship.