London 4: Into the City and out of the city

Jess and I have started watching the clock a bit. We only have a couple more weeks in London and we’re realizing how many places we’d love to check out that we’re not going to get to. Oh well. It turns out it’s a big enough city that you can’t see everything. Shocking info, I know.

In the meantime, we realized that one of the areas we hadn’t explored nearly as much as we’d like (and one I spent much more time in when we were here in 1999) is the City. The City? Yes, the City. The City of London is the ancient Roman core of London–a one-square-mile area that was once enclosed by a defensive wall. Now it’s the financial center of the city. It has it’s own “Lord Mayor” who is different from the Mayor of Greater London, and while it’s an integral part of London as a whole, it’s not actually a borough of London and has all sorts of it’s own odd structures. In fact, the few thousand people that live there (very, very few: about 8,000), don’t even control the “City of London Corporation”–it’s leaders are elected by both the residents and the businesses based in the City. Wacko.

Anyhow, we went down there (it’s only a mile or so walk) recently to take yet another walking tour, and then again for a nice view. Our walking tour guide was great–really one of the most informative we’ve had so far. She took us winding through alleys, up to rooftops, out to the river, and to some great viewpoints. One of the best spots was the roof of a new mall right across the street from St. Paul’s Cathedral. It’s the largest and most famous church built or rebuilt by the architect Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was not the only one we saw. He was responsible for 54 of them, so they’re kinda hard to miss.

However, I think this view that we had a bit later in the journey was even better…

Speaking of the Great Fire, we stopped by “The Monument,” another Wren work, that was built to commemorate the fire. It’s just down the street from the Pudding Lane bakery where the fire started. Interestingly, a new building next to the Monument has these wavy exterior elements meant to look a bit like flames (only a bit, though). But, their reflection is way more spooky, kinda dancing in the windows of the building across the street, like the memory of a fire long ago (I mean, like 356 years ago, to be exact).

We also went by two of my favorite spots from when I used to work in the Ziff-Davis office across from the Tower of London. One is simply the lovely view over the Tower from the tube station exit. The other is St. Dunstan-in-the-East, yet another Wren creation. But, what makes it so beautiful is that it has been turned into a roofless garden space after being partially destroyed in the Blitz (WWII). It’s a super-peaceful spot right in the middle of the busy City.

Of course, probably the funniest part of the tour was debating names for one of London’s new glassy towers. Lots of London’s big new buildings have nicknames (including the spot this photo was taken from: One New Change is known as “The Stealth Bomber” because of its low sleak shape that allows it to sneak in under the sight lines towards St. Paul’s that are required to be preserved by law), but this one, over on the south side of the Thames evidently has quite a number. I had once looked it up and read that it was called the Boomerang. It turns out that’s about the tamest of its nicknames. It’s also known as the Vase, the Pregnant Tower, the Tummy, or the Kardashian. What do you think? Preferences? New nickname ideas?

Speaking of places with nicknames, we’ve also had some closer-up views of the Gherkin…

…the Cheesegrater…

_{Note: the second image isn’t mine, but I wanted to give you a better view so that the name made sense…}

…and whatever the hell this monstrosity is…

We also took another trip into the City to visit the Sky Garden, a garden/bar/restaurant space at the top of the Walkie Talkie, which looms over the City with it’s smooth but bulky shape.

We timed our Sky Garden visit so that we would be up there at sunset, which was cool, but sadly it was raining the whole time we were there. Not only did that make the views cloudy and the windows hard to see through, but they also closed off the outside deck. Regardless, it was still pretty and we had a nice time hanging out and having a drink there.

In general, walking around the City is a pretty fascinating study in contrasting styles of displaying wealth and power throughout history. From the last bits of the remaining London Wall (see London 1), to the Tower of London or the giant stone fortresses of 19th century banking, and right up to the shiny glass towers that are being constructed as we speak, it’s all there in that one square mile, often pushing up against one another.

Of course, the coolest part about having a medieval city core that for whatever reason wasn’t razed and rebuilt in some logical fashion is that it’s freaking weird. There are only a few major buildings that are actually rectangular–most have to deal with some sort of odd street angle or another–and because of all the odd spaces between buildings, there are a ton of narrow alleys and even more pedestrian cut-throughs, whether they’re labeled arcades, passages, walks, or whatever. It’s just fun to wander such a busy part of town without constantly worrying about car traffic. (Though, where there is traffic, it’s at huge odd-angled intersections, usually with five or six major roads. Ugh.) All these hidden bits are really one of the most fun parts of walking in London.

_{Note: the last image below is not from the City, but from near where we’re living, it’s a passage that goes right through a housing block–the kind of thing that I’m glad I can see on my OutdoorActive app that’s completely hidden on GoogleMaps–connecting two streets that would otherwise require quite a few blocks walk.}

Besides delving deeper into the heart of the City, we’ve also taken three trips out of town recently. Our first, and most extensive, was a five day trip to Birmingham. Jessica needed to go there to access some archives at the University of Birmingham, but the trip came with an awesome side-benefit: we got to stay with John and Jacqueline, friends from our Santa Barbara days that we hadn’t seen in nearly 10 years.

Of course, getting to the train station meant braving the most crowded bus I’ve seen because of the week-long tube strike (that we otherwise avoided serendipitously by being out of town).

Birmingham itself was nice to wander around a bit, but I only scratched the surface while Jess was off digging around at the University. It grew as an industrial city and so there’s a pretty extensive canal network, including one that goes straight from the city center to John and Jacqueline’s place and another branch that goes off towards the University, making them a pretty convenient set of walking paths for our visit. (The first few pics below are from just out the door of John and Jacqueline’s place.)

The center of the city was interesting, with a mix of beautiful old buildings and a ton of arcades, most full of shops, but some just public passages.

I also went further out to the Digbeth neighborhood, which is a mix of abandoned warehouses and hipster street food joints, largely covered in wall to wall street art.

On the way I passed through the tiny Chinatown, which had one gorgeous hidden alleyway that looked like this…

I asked a number of people if there were particular “sights” I should visit and the only thing they recommended was the library, so to the library I went. It’s an interesting new building–John called it “mosque-like” and I think that feels accurate–but it’s best feature is the public access to several rooftop spaces with views over the city. Also, on the very top of the building is preserved a chunk of the old library: a gigantic collection of Shakespeare’s works in a lovely old-school-museum-style room.

Our first day there conincided with the last day of a strike being held by John’s union, a national union of university professors. I joined him first for some picketing at a new University of Birmingham location right across from the downtown library (above), and then at a student/supporter rally and march on campus. It was depressing learning about some of the conditions he works under (it makes even some lecturer jobs in the US sound pretty good), but it was nice to see a lot of support for making at least modest improvements.

Of course, the best part of being there was just hanging out with our friends and getting to know their kids, Clara (who we had met once when she was less than a year old) and Roland. We had a great time with them, exploring the city, visiting some fun pubs (one very old, one quite new), and generally just hanging out. Their kids were overflowing with energy. I had a lot of fun playing with them. There were Legos, board games, and a ton of chess (Roland is especially into it–enough that I eventually forced him to play other opponents, like Kwok, a friend who popped in for a quick chat and got roped into a game). Clara also got some help from Jess and Jacqueline in putting together a spider costume for World Book Day (Charlotte’s Web). But, mostly, both children just seemed to think I was a human-shaped jungle gym. Good times were had.

It was also interesting learning about their neighborhood. It’s a completely new development, but there’s a group, Civic Square, working to help make the area liveable, social, and environmentally friendly. Every weekend, their little narrowboat pulls up and offers free coffee, tea, and cake to the folks there. They also sponsor football (soccer) for the kids, free bike repair (thanks Kwok!), and other events. You can see some of their work on the main square in the neighborhood. John and Jacqueline are working with the group to do a reading and discussion group around the book Doughnut Economics, which seems interesting, even if they approach it with some reservations. Civic Square has also been involved with trying to preserve a few of the historic buildings in the development area. Sadly, a group of Travelers passed through a few months ago and completely trashed the place–you can see all the boarded up windows and doors and there’s glass on the streets still. It was interesting talking to John about this incident. Like us, his first reaction was to push back when the neighbors all said, “Oh no, a group of Travelers,” and while we’re all still sure that not all of them are like this, the group that did come to their neighborhood really did some serious damage. Frustrating.

Finally, for the Tolkien fans, he once lived not far from their neighborhood, and the rumor is that these two structures, Perrott’s Folly and the Edgbaston Waterworks Tower, inspired “The Two Towers,” but I couldn’t find any evidence for this beyond the repeated theories noting the coincidence…

Sadly, we had to return to London, but Jessica does need one more day in the archives there, so we’re looking forward to seeing the gang again soon…

A week after our trip to Birmingham, we ran out of town again, but this time just for a day trip to Cambridge. Overall, the town was very cute and exceedingly busy. Their terms are very short–three eight-week chunks a year–so when students are in town, the population grows by about 30%, not to mention it was just a gorgeous day, so tourists were coming in from all over. We enjoyed watching people “punting” on the River Cam (which evidently is named after Cambridge, not the other way around, and elsewhere it’s still known as the Granta…weird). Some of them were pros, expertly scooting their tourist-laden boats around the floundering incompetents in rented boats. There was a great market and a plethora of narrow cobblestone streets lined with all sorts of cafes and such.

We also learned to identify Saxon-era construction–just one box stacked on another. This tower was built just before the Norman invasion. And what are the holes on the top for? They were made to house owls in order to defend the books inside from mice.

And we learned a bunch about the university system here. Short story: it’s confusing, with a mix of dozens of colleges and an overarching University with various interlocking duties and staff. We learned about odd traditions. (Public posting of final exam scores!? That’s done in front of Senate House, where graduation takes place.) Also, a variety of pranks pulled by brilliant oddball students. (Cars on the roof? Why not?) We examined the architectural symbolism. (Gonville and Caius are both depicted holding buildings in front of the college they helped create.) And we visited a few of the colleges, which mostly keep the public locked out. (Though it was hilarious to see 19-year-olds with keys opening these massive medieval doors from time to time.) One we went into was Pembroke College, where Christopher Wren (see above) built his first chapel–just a year before the Great Fire in London (good timing!)–and generations of students carved their names when instructors weren’t looking (some things never change).

We happened to be in Pembroke’s Chapel when the organ player was practicing…

The other college where we got inside the gates was King’s College. We signed up for free tickets to the evensong service. Advantages: get in free, absolutely gorgeous chapel, beautiful singing, nice spot to relax. Disadvantages: a bit more religious than I prefer my activities to be. I guess I should have expected that. I learned that the Holy Ghost was a busy dude and that the Church of England still uses the term “Catholick.” Overall, the whole thing was actually quite beautiful, and the chapel itself is a true gem.

And…the strangest thing in Cambridge: the Corpus Clock. I should have gotten a video. The weird demon-grasshopper-thing uses its legs to push the clock along. Its mouth opens wider and wider until snapping shut each minute (another minute of your life devoured). It also is not accurate! Except that it is every five minutes. In between it speeds up and slows down to give a sense of time being uncertain. So weird.

Finally, earlier this week we went down to Brighton for just one night. Jessica was giving a lecture at the University of Sussex and conducting a couple of interviews, so I was mostly left to wander on my own again. Brighton is, of course, famous for its Victorian Era pier and long rocky stretches of beach. None of that is so exciting when it’s only 50 degrees outside, but it was still pleasant to look at the ocean.

More enjoyable was the area stretching back into the city from the waterfront. This starts with “the Lanes,” an area of incomprehensibly-twisting alleys, some only wide enough for one person at a time, lined with chachka shops and the like. Further from the water, these widen into more normal, but still quite narrow, streets, with a variety of funky shops and some great street art.

The aging Royal Pavillion also added to the oddity with its completely dated colonialist sensibilities.

Though, perhaps the funkiness of the town was best captured by this stand on the pier. I can’t tell for sure, but I think this is actually just super-old very-weathered advertising (either that or an excellent job at looking retro).

I did manage to turn this into a bit of a business trip of my own, as I got the chance to sit down with a well known game reviewer and give them a preview of Space Station Phoenix. We had fun with that and then a few more quick games. I’m slightly hopeful about him finding time in his schedule to publish something on the game, but who knows…

In other personal news, I continue to work on math stuffs, and I had my first job interview yesterday. I’m kinda hoping I can work something out to return to PCS and teach Math, but who knows. We’ll see how things proceed. I just need to make sure Jess never takes a shower during an interview, because each time she does our smoke alarm goes off (from the steam). That may or may not have caused me to run away from my writing a few minutes ago to wave a blanket at the smoke detector. Likewise, I won’t interrupt her Zoom calls with famous ex-students (like the one that she may or may not have been on last night).

OK. That’s enough babble for now. Just two more weeks left in London. Ack! Hasta la próxima…