God the peace - an early start

So in contrast to the madness of the crowds on Monday, on Saturday I took a friend of mine and her son (as a 12th birthday treat) to the Tower of London. Now, since I was doing the organising, I suggested a 9am start (that being opening time at the Tower). Which was such a good move.

Being a weekend, London Underground took the opportunity to shut down as much as possible of the network including Tower Hill. But this left a pleasant enough walk on a sunny morning down the Minories.

But the really amazing thing, compared to my previous visits to this tourist honey-pot, was that the place was almost empty. For example, on my last visit the queue to the Crown Jewels was all the way down the central square. Here we walked straight in and indeed were almost on our own. Apart from an American couple who exclaimed "That can't be a real diamond". Ok its big, but its the crown jewels dear. The economy isn't quite so bad that the Royal Family are down to throwing in some costume jewellery to fill in the regalia.

Anyway, look here and you will see the emptiest Tower will be, outside the end of the world. Just so much a contrast to Monday. You actually want to look at things when they aren't utterly obscured by people.

Anyway, it was a lovely day. Just the right temperature for walking around. We had a nice mid-morning coffee break in the for once not utterly heaving cafe. I had brought along the "bucket list" the National Trust had just done. You may have seen this in the news. Couldn't be more apposite for a boy about to turn 12 since it was 50 things you should do before you are eleven and three-quarters. Its quite a fun list to analyse as its really all the things a middle-class child in the 1950s might do - an Enid Blyton world. (And funnily enough I guess just about the childhood of those who now run the NT.) So things like explore a rockpool, climb a tree, roll down a hill, start a snail race, make a mud pie, run around in the rain. All to help commune with nature. The bits that especially mark out the middle-class status of it are things like standing behind a waterfall - waterfalls not being things which are abundant where most of us live, but no doubt fine on your family holiday in Wales, the Lake District or Scotland. In the 1950s.

Young Tom however scored pretty well. Despite being a well-adjusted kid of the 21st century. We had a nice chat about the Chemical Brothers. Funnily enough no room for dubstep on the NT list.

We then did the last bits in the Tower (including the torture exhibition. Always intrigued me how we were at our most beastly to our fellow men just at the time we were most pious in religious observation. Indeed being caught doing the wrong bit of worship seemed the main justification for having your limbs mangled in the most gruesome manner imagineable. And on that score they did seem to have fertile imaginations.) By that time we were eager to go to neighbouring St Katharine's Dock for some lunch. We found a very nice (and completely empty) Italian restaurant for lunch (nice to take Tom somewhere adult rather than "child-friendly" - usually code for cheap and grotty). Impressed he went for the warm octopus salad as a starter. I know at his age I would have turned my nose up at any invertebrate. Or anything vaguely exotic. (Although to be fair we never really ate out when I was young so the situation wouldn't have arisen.)

Then we went for a walk a little further down docklands and used one of the little side alleys to go down onto the Thames foreshore. Its only at low-tide like this you realise just how tidal the Thames is. Using the green slime on the walls as a comparison point its obviously comfortably more than 10 feet from high to low tide. I am sure investigating the foreshore should have been on that NT list, but mud larking would seem a little too common. And in the 1950s an urban river would have equated to a sewer.

So, a great laugh really. How I like spending a day. Nothing serious, just fun. And home in time to watch the re-run of the first Cup semi-final. Without knowing the result. Perfect. (Well apart from the result. Difficult to work out which of Chelsea and Liverpool one wants to lose the final most....)

God the crowds

Easter Monday I was meeting up with a friend of mine and his brother. My home town being a convenient centre between their respective homes in Cheshire and San Francisco. Indeed last time I had seen the brother was in San Francisco more than 20 years ago. Then with girlfriend since which he has acquired an American wife, two children and an accent. The latter is the more surprising. I just can't quite get people acquiring a new accent.

Plan was to meet at the Science Museum early afternoon, so I took the opportunity for another stroll around the V & A beforehand. Pretty busy given it was wet Bank Holiday, but not too bad. I particuklarly like the plaster cast gallery.

This is a really nice juxtaposition don't you think? Stern old bishop on the wall condemned to spend the rest of time gazing obn the cavorting naked couple. Obviously, he is enjoying it really, even though he has the expression one normally reserves for sucking lemons.

And generally you can find somewhere quiet, and here it is a matter of going high enough. On the top floor is the new ceramics gallery which is well worth a trip. They have found ways of displaying the vast collection of pots in an attractive manner.

But then with the aid of a mobile phone I managed to ascertain that the others had decided that the Natural History Museum would be a more entertaining place to take the kids. This is what I can only describe as a mistake of staggering naivety, unless one has children who have a particular love of standing in long queues. Of course, the problem was there is a vast number of other naive parents who all think that the Natural History Museum is the ideal place to go on a wet Bank Holiday. At the same time. Needless to say the queues were humongous. And having spent ages snaking one's way in through the doors one only got met by a further snaking queue to see the dinosaurs. So we never did. There are only so many queues one can enjoy. Actually less than one. And two breaks the camel's back, let alone a child's patience.

And the kids were more excited by the idea of an ice-cream. An ambition we satisfied in Harrods. Indeed in their frozen yogurt bar. Incredible place Harrods (with suitably incredible prices - £6.50 for a Harrods beer). But nice surroundings. And infinitely better than the Natural History Museum stuffed with tiny children and fractious parents.

Farewell to the Theatre

I have commented previously how old I feel going to some gigs and being surrounded by teenagers. On the other hand going to the theatre, and particularly Hampstead Theatre, makes me feel quite sprightly. The average age of the audience is probably even higher than an Anglican congregation. Certainly a strong bias to pensioners, which must be a worrying trend for the theatres. But frankly with ticket prices what they are its not too surprising. And at least for a gig you pretty much know what you are going to get. The theatre can always be a bit hit and miss.

Like this play.

An odd play. Not a bad evening at the theatre. I didn't go home feeling diddled. And Ben Chaplin in the lead as an English theatre director out in America was stunningly good. The dialogue was all wonderfully natural, totally believable. But maybe that's what made it so banal too. That and so much of it was reported action rather than events happening on stage. All in all, just a bit unsatisfying. It just didn't seem to be about anything. Or at least not about something worth writing a play about.

But I have just signed up for another play here, to see a stage production of Chariots of Fire. Well it is Olympic year and everyone is going to want to get in one the act. Literally.

Been a quiet week for me, with really only one other night out, going for dinner with an ex-trainee of mine and her husband. But a very enjoyable night out too. I really do like dinner parties, and they were wonderful company. The evening whizzed past. I have said it before, but a convivial evening with friends over dinner and wine pretty much can't be beaten. And they are just such a charming couple. Always a good sign when conversation flows so easily. The wine helps!

Emirates for dinner

Not had much of note on this week since the theatre on Monday.

Have had a vacation student shadowing me - a young chap currently at Durham university seeing what the job is all about. Of course all this work experience stuff is of dubious value, even for those who are nearing the end of their student days, let alone for schoolkids. The problem is that you can't truly get a feel for what a job is like without actually doing it. And much as one might try, they just know too little to actually be able to let them loose on anything that is much more than clerical. So I generally take the view that my main aim is not to put them off, and to put them at ease so that one can at least assess what they are like, ie how they handle themselves. The difficulty being that one is naturally going to be nervous and on best behaviour, and this can mask the bit we really want to see in assessing whether or not we fancy taking them on.

But in a personal sense it was fine - really nice lad who was at least good company for me when I had to travel to Winchester for a meeting. Wonderful warm day, but sadly saw no more of Winchester than the railway station car park. Would have so much enjoyed just sloping off in the afternoon to a pub for a pint after the meeting. But would have set a bad example!

Did go to the Emirates stadium this week. My first visit to the new stadium, but sadly only for a charity black tie dinner. (And my next visit will be to see Coldplay. Hopefully one day I will get to see a football match.)

The dinner was a in aid of Hospices. A worthy cause and, as was pointed out, they need £1.5m a week, so that's a lot of charity. Very good food to compensate for the fact that my £20 raffle ticket didn't come up trumps (although a colleague picked up £50 in B & Q vouchers). But these affairs are just a bit irritating in that they are a chance for the wealthy to show off. First they had an awards ceremony, the charity making various trumped up awards to thank their main donors ("partners") and get someone the honour of collecting something and having their photo taken in their best clothes. And at the end of the dinner comes up the charity auction, mostly hospitality tickets for assorted sporting events - football, golf, racing - which generally went for more than a thousand pounds each. What I might describe as conspicuous giving.

Friday night, after a busy week in the office for my department, one of the partners offered to take us all out for a drink in a nearby pub. Which was much appreciated by most of us. Does make it feel like we are really a team. I had already arranged to meet up for a drink with one of my ex-trainees who is now at a rival firm, so I neatly swapped one drinking event into another. Followed by a nice meal at a Moroccan restaurant. So not a big event, but frankly a drink and dinner with a good friend is as attractive a form of entertainment to me as any. And I should make as much use as I can of this mate before he gets married in the summer and I guess evenings out will be a lot scarcer. Which is a pity for me, but bonus for his fiancee. Who is a lucky woman.