Oxford

So after a morning in Bristol I picked up a train to Oxford. Quen offered to pick me up from the station, an offer which I accepted gladly as I hadn't dried out yet. But Oxford was by now sunny, so after lunch we went on a little Spring walk

Very kindly my friends were putting me up because it was my old College dinner, which is always a very convivial affair, and an opportunity to dress up in black tie which I rarely get these days. No photos from the dinner because that would feel a bit rude, but some of Radcliffe Square on the way to it in late evening. Nicely atmospheric at that time.

 

Bristol gig visit

I found myself with a free Thursday evening in a busy week, and I thought, why not fill it? Bones Ate Arfa, who I had seen in London last week, had the next date on their tour in Bristol, So I asked young Luka at Bristol University if he would like another visit from me, and to see a band. So having had a positives response I got on the train Thursday lunchtime and headed over.

This was a bit of a mad trip as the next day I had to be in Oxford to see friends there and to go to dinner at my old college, and then I needed to get back to London by Saturday afternoon to receive visitors and go to watch West Ham v Man City with them. But I like life being full on.

So to start with a walk across Bristol to my hotel. Taking in the expansive Queens Square

George III

Alms Houses. Nice inscription on them below

Above is St George's, a music venue created out of a 200 year old Georgian church

Below is the Georgian House Museum which I fancied visiting. Unfortunately doesn't reopen until April.

As Luka and Anna were working on essays, I still had some time to kill so went into the ceramics section of Bristol Museum. Liked this modern porcelain collection, with modern vessel shapes decorated in antique style 

And then to meet the students at the Hatchett Inn, as rumour had it once frequented by Blackbeard the pirate. Now more by bikers

Then dinner at a very decent Sri Lankan restaurant before crossing the road to the gig venue, the Croft.

Luka feigning astonishment at the size of the dosa he and Anna had ordered.

 But to be fair, it was enormous, far too long to actually put on a plate!

 We arrived at the Croft to find the openers were already on stage. Icehouse. Who were really quite good. Which is more than could be said for the Pit Feeders who were next on. After a couple of songs we repaired to the front of the pub to chat

But I led them back in for Bones Ate Arfa, and introduced then to the lads. I have bemoaned the lighting at venues before, and this place was no exception in liking the idea of bathing the acts in infra red. So I didn't take many shots. On the plus side the Croft has a big stage.

And the big stage allowed Herbie and his drums to take centre stage

Unfortunately, Luka and Anna did not take to the band at all. "Did you really like that?" asks Luka, clearly incredulous that anyone would. However, the night got worse. While we were inside, the heavens had opened, and we found ourselves cast out into a monsoon. Honestly, most of the side streets had turned into fast flowing rivers. The trainers that I was wearing and which I was convinced were waterproof were clearly nothing of the kind. I was very grateful to Luka for taking me most of the way back to the hotel. At least I was wearing a showerproof coat - they were wearing nothing remotely water resistant and looked highly bedraggled . An especially galling outcome if one hadn't enjoyed the band either.

But they didn't have my early start. I had arranged to meet up for breakfast with my ex-trainee Anna (yes another Anna) and her husband who were now based in Bristol. Which was absolutely lovely to do. I so enjoy catching up with folk. Although again I didn't do well on the weather. It poured  after I set out from the hotel, cleared up while were having breakfast into being lovely and sunny, only to chuck it down again as I returned to the station.😠

Samurai at the British Museum

Not been to the British Museum fort a while. And feel the need to make the most of my membership. So I got up one morning to see the Samurai exhibition. Which was very good. A lot of sets of samurai armour

And some very gory scrolls. Yes this is a decapitated warrior

..and this is a Samurai wandering off with a decapitated head in his hand

They devoted a wall to rather atmospheric silhouetted samurai soldiers riding on horseback

They were massive show offs - look at the se helmets!

It had never occurred to me before, but Darth Vader was based on a samurai warrior, although fairly obvious when you see them together

I also went to the Hawaii exhibition. This is centered upon the relationship between Britain and Hawaii, both island monarchies. The Hawaiian royalty did indeed make a visit to Georgian England, but a disastrous one in the the Hawaiian king and queen contracted measles on the journey and died.

As an exhibition it does suffer from being overly woke, making a great play on the collaboration between the BM and the Hawaiian community, although being exceedingly vague on the Hawaiian input (one imagines in practice nothing at all apart from translating captions into the "local" tongue, for absolutely no one to read it...)

Unfortunately there is also an unintended comic element to it all. The fearsome Hawaiian deities look rather like children's comic book characters 

It is difficult to read blub about the sacred nature of these gods when (a) they can't be identified (their culture is so important that they have forgotten it) and (b) they look like something out of themuppet show.

So after two exhibitions it was just a matter of ambling back through Russell Square, prettily decorated with spring flowers