Tag Archive | Barnes

Osterley Park and House–Another Adam Masterpiece!

Jun7

Sunday, June 7, 2009
Osterley Park, London

The Silence of English Rain:
It was only because I was awoken today by a series of thunderclaps that I realized how quiet really is English rain! I mean for all these months that I have lived in London and for all the dreary, drizzling, dull and dripping days I’ve dealt with, never have I ever woken to the sound of rain–unlike the din that the downpours make in Bombay or the drumming of the drops that come down in sheets outside my Connecticut windows. English rain is silent rain. You see it, you feel it, you taste it, you smell in—but you never never hear it! This fact came home to me this morning when I actually heard the thunder and realized how odd the sound felt and how long it had been since my ears had picked up those deafening decibels.

I turned over in bed, reached for Potter, read about fifty pages, then promptly turned over and fell asleep again–awaking this time about 8. 30. This left me just enough time for a fragrant shower but not time enough to linger over coffee. I fixed myself a breakfast to go (toast with raspberry jam), dressed in layers and a trifle too warmly (as we’ve had a few nippy days and I did not want to feel chilly on the Thames’ tow paths) and was off. I caught a bus from Charterhouse Street, then connected to the 8 on High Holborn, then to the 9 that got me to Hammersmith and then the 419 that took me to Richmond. See? I am becoming quite a pro at this bus route thing!

My friend John was awaiting my arrival at Richmond Station and, at my request, we checked out some of the thrift shops in the area (inspired by Mary Portas who has lent her expertise to a recent feature in Time Out in London magazine on the city’s best thrift shops). It seems the ones in the towns and villages along the Thames (Richmond, Barnes, Twickenham, Putney) are particularly good and since I was in the neighborhood–what the heck! It was worth a dekko, I thought.

Well, I was not disappointed. John knew them all. From Richmond to St. Margaret’s, the little village in which he has a very cute flat, he accompanied me like a trooper. And my sleuthing was not in vain. By the end of my foraging, I emerged with a virtually new pair of Prada shoes and two English bone china mugs that commemorated the wedding of Prince Charles with Camilla–in their original boxes! Needless to say, I got these enviable items at bargain prices but then we were too laden with my purchases and the drizzle continued intermittently.

We decided to abandon our plans to walk at leisure along the Thames; but instead crossed Richmond Bridge (I saw a lovely interpretation of it in Trevor Chamberlaine’s oil painting at the Guildhall Art Gallery recently) and took a bus to Osterley. Our aim was to tour the National Trust-run property that was designed by Robert Adam called Osterley Park and House.

Visiting Osterley Park and House:
Once we alighted from the bus, we had about a ten minute walk to the gate of the property, after which we had to walk another ten minutes to get to the entrance of the house. Once past the gate, the visitor soaks in the wide expansive property on both sides of the driveway–property in which cattle grazed placidly or chewed the cud for the weather kept changing every ten minutes and by the time we reached Adam’s imposing Neo-Classical portico, past the beautiful artificial lake, every raindrop had dried and the sun shone warmly upon us.

We released our coats and brollies and jackets to the safe keeping of the staff at the front door and launched on our discovery of the premises. The best thing we could have asked for was the audio wand that comes free with admission (normally 8. 50 pounds though it was free for me as I am a National Trust member) for this proved to be extraordinarily useful as we flitted from room to room.

But, first things first. Modern-day visitors (i.e. We) do not enter the house by Adam’s intended main door. We use a far more modest side entrance. Why this is so is beyond my comprehension. If the Trust wishes visitors to achieve as exact an idea as possible of what it might have been like to be invited as a guest of the family in the 18th century, they ought to have permitted us the holistic experience! Nevertheless, the entrance was impressive as we were carried up a wide staircase and on to the first floor landing from where we saw a superb ceiling medallion done by none other than Peter Paul Reubens in the early 1700s. Now the original was removed for safe keeping in the early 20th century (during World War II), rolled up and placed in a warehouse on the Channel Island of Jersey–which promptly caught fire so that Reuben’s original work was destroyed. What adorns the ceiling of Osterley House today is a reproduction but it carries none of the subtlety of Reubens’ coloring (as anyone who has seen the ceiling of the Banqueting House at Whitehall would tell immediately).

Be that as it may, the audio wand told us the story of the inhabitants of this house at this stage in the tour. The house was built by James Child in the 18th century to a design by Robert Adam who was recognized as the greatest architect of his era specializing in the creation of the English country estate. Child had inherited his fortune from his ancestors who were Directors of the East India Company and had made their money a century previously trading in tea, cotton, silks, spices and, yes–it must be said–slaves! In 1763, he married a woman named Sarah who gave him one child, a daughter named Sarah Anne. The family lived for at least 30 years in Osterley Park at the time when most of the interior decoration was undertaken by Adam.

The tour wound us through the exquisite taste and grandeur of Adam’s aesthetic. If you have seen Syon House (or any one of the other stately homes for which he is responsible–see my blog on my visit to Syon House written last October), you will see a uniformity in his designs–his use, for instance, of symmetrically formal arrangements inspired by classical motifs in the Palladian style–such as urns and pilasters, columns and Greek key designs on moldings, the lavish use of white plaster of Paris embellishments contrasted against the matt backdrop of what has come to be called Wedgwood blue, green, teal and puce (because it was in the same era that Josiah Wedgwood was imitating the classicism of plaster of Paris interior decoration on his ‘Jasperware’ pottery in his factory in Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands).

Apart from this, Adam’s most striking signature feature, there are paintings galore in the house, executed directly on ceilings or as panels on the walls of each room or as framed canvasses then used to decorate them. Collections of fine European and English porcelain, marquetry work on furniture. impressive sideboards and other occasional seating pieces (a Robert Adam-designed bed is the most stunning centerpiece in the master bedroom) and other accoutrements make up the bulk of the house. Special mention must be made of the Tapestry Room whose walls are lined by Tapestries whose four center medallions are woven interpretations of a series of paintings by Francois Boucher called The Seasons. This work is so finely executed that were the visitor not informed that it was tapestry on the wall, he would well have believed he was looking at paintings. These tapestries were made in France by the famous Gobelin factory and they must be among the most valuable things in the place. Downstairs, visitors walked through enormous kitchens in which prodigious amounts of food were cooked and conveyed by a stealthy series of staircases and concealed doors for the gastronomic pleasure of the family and their privileged guests. Overall, not too bad an ancestral pile at all!

The audio guides were superb in pointing attention to each of the features of the rooms as well as providing a wealth of historical, artistic and architectural information to further enhance enjoyment of the visual feast. What came home to me on this visit was that the Neo-Classical architect needed to combine the genius of three varied disciplines in the execution of his work: as builder, engineer and artist. Indeed, all these elements combined to make this one of the most enjoyable tours of a country estate that I have ever taken. Though Osterley lacks the ostentation of, say, Vanbrugh’s Castle Howard near York, it is a magnificent building and one that I was very glad John accompanied me in visiting.

Tea in the Stables:
Our visit had rendered us ravenous and we were glad that sustenance awaited not too far away–in the picturesque Tea Rooms that extended out into the Tea Garden–a brick-walled enclosed garden with wrought iron furniture and green canvas umbrellas. We settled down to cups of steaming Darjeeling and a cheese scone and how welcome was that treat! Truly, if it was the East (China and India) that bestowed the habit of tea-drinking upon the English, it was they who gave to the rest of the world that charming meal called Tea-time. I often wish it were not the issue of the tea tax that had led to the loss of the thirteen North American colonies. It was probably out of defiance that the American colonists rejected the delightful customs of tea-time–which explains why we do not pause for tea at 4 o clock in America while the people of every former British colony everywhere else in the world do!!! Or maybe Anna, the Duchess of Bedford, who is credited with having started the delightful custom of tea-drinking by surreptitiously calling for the drink with a snack in her boudoir had not yet initiated her habit by the time the colonists dumped that shipload of tea in Boston Harbor!

A quick look at a film in the former stables and a browse around the shop and it was already 5 pm and the park was closing down for the day. John and I walked past the lovely lake, took some pictures together to commemorate our visit and then were walking along the rural pastures that had made agriculture such a lucrative pursuit for the 18th century aristocracy–it was not for nothing that they were called the landed gentry! If you could only see the endless acres stretching all the way to the horizon that surround this house! It wasn’t long before we said our goodbyes, parted at the bus-stop and went our separate ways.

I have begun to master the routes to Charterhouse Street and in an hour and a half, I was home. I had almost an hour-long conversation with Llew on the phone before I stopped to eat my dinner (a rather light one of chicken noodle soup and toast with chocolate praline ice-cream for dessert) as that scone still stood me in good stead.

It was soon time to write this blog, get ready for bed and go to sleep, my appetite entirely whetted for the feast of country estates and gardens that await me on my proposed tour.

‘Tons of Money’ in Richmond, A Piano Recital at the National Gallery and ‘Oliver’ at the West End

Jan21

Wednesday, January 22, 2009
London

White I adore London for its long and colorful history, there is a downside to this aspect of its charm. Road works! Ever since I can remember taking possession of this flat at High Holborn, there have been ‘road works’ at some point or the other along its length from Chancery Lane Tube Station to High Holborn Tube station. This plays havoc with the smooth flow of traffic along one of London’s main arterial roads. This also means that you can never really time a journey by bus as it all depends on the vagaries of the road workers and their whims–they hold up buses while their construction vehicles are given priority and when one sits on the upper deck as I always do and have a view of all proceedings beneath me, it is often frustrating and infuriating. But then I have to remember that when you live in a city that has been a work-in-progress since the Medieval Age, you cannot complain.

I don’t know whether this is purely psychological, but after my visit to Paul, the specialist physiotherapist, at Euston Hospital (my name for the University of London’s Hospital at Euston), my legs feel much better. His exercises are more challenging and one of then requires me to lie down on a bed when performing it–which means that I cannot do it three times a day as I am invariably out and about in the afternoon–but they seem to be working already although he told me that I would not feel their effects for weeks. I have also resolved to be good and not walk for leisure anymore. If I take foot rest, the homeopathic treatment, perform the exercises and pray, I should hope to see a complete cure by May–when I hope to start walking the Jubilee Walkway in little spurts.

Awaking at 5 am, I spent an hour reading Bombay Tiger which has a completely different style from the rest of Kamala Markandaya’s novels–though the content bears similarity to The Coffer Dams. After doing my exercises, spending a while blogging, having breakfast and taking a shower, I headed out the door for a long bus ride to Richmond that involved changing three buses.

It was a most unusual winter’s days in London for it was bathed in golden sunlight under clear blue skies. I actually left the house today without an umbrella and just a small bag (though I did carry my camera) so as to avoid the load on my back. Changing buses wasn’t a problem at all and I was actually able to ride in one of the historic Number 9 buses from Piccadilly to the Royal Albert Hall. I now have the hang of changing buses at Hammersmith Broadway Bus Station (at which point you walk through a shopping mall which always makes me feel as if I am back in Connecticut!). I arrived in Richmond at 12. 15 pm, recognized the shops on The Quadrant just past the main railway station and hopped off.

I walked quickly to the Tesco Metro to buy what has become a favorite sandwich (The Cheddar Cheese and Onion) and though it costs a mere pound, it is truly delicious. I also found a pack of four chocolate eclairs for a pound and with this lunch in the bag, I started on a short self-guided walk in Richmond from my book 24 Great Walks in London with the promise to myself that I would take long and frequent breaks and stop as soon as my feet felt strained.

It was such a perfect days for walking. In fact it was a perfect day, period. This is the very first time that I saw Barnes Bridge on a sunlit day and while I recognized it immediately from the bus, I wish I could have gotten off and taken a few pictures of it as the ones I have taken before on rainy days make it look so dour and forbidding. Once in Richmond, I found myself walking along short Duke Street towards The Green which was once a sheep pasture but is used today for a variety of sporting activities including cricket. I could not believe that just a few yards ahead of me were the remains of Old Richmond Palace from which the Tudor King Henry VII had reigned, where his son Henry VIII had been born and where his grand-daughter Elizabeth I had died. Destroyed, but for a small portion of it, by Oliver Cromwell, the seal of Henry VII is still embedded in one of the Palace Gates that marks the entry into a lovely evocative old Tudor Yard that contains the Royal Wardrobe Building.

Enchanted by this hidden treasure and moved by the fact that the remaining shreds of this building have seen so much bloody history (before Henry moved his court to Hampton Court Palace which he seized from Cardinal Wolsey–I can understand now why the egotistical Henry would never tolerate the fact that his lowly prelate owned a dwelling that was so much more magnificent than his own!) I walked along a delightful street with old attached ‘cottages’ that took me to the Thames riverfront where twin bridges stood right in front of me. The promenade along the river was just delightful and many people were out walking despite the wind and the rather chilly temperatures. I read up on the history of the Old Deer Park (which has no deer in it), then ate a sandwich and an eclair on a bench overlooking the water.

A little later, I found myself walking under the beautiful Richmond Bridge which is made of Portland stone and climbing the steps into O’Higgins Square to start a short climb along Hill Rise towards what my book describes as the only protected view in the UK–protected by a 1906 Act of Parliament. Personalities from Turner to Reynolds to Walter Scott have described it as ‘the most unrivalled view in the country’ and William Byrd, the founder of Richmond, Virginia, is said to have named the new colony in the New World because the view of his territory across the Potomac reminded him of just this view of London across the Thames at this site. Be that as it may, one of the ‘owners’ of this unsullied view today is none other than rock idol, Mick Jagger, who owns a house in The Ashburton, a block of grand terraced housing that overlooks the bend in the Thames at this vantage point.

I decided to cut short my rambles at this point as my pedometer (that I am now wearing constantly) reminded me that I had already walked more than a mile. I took a bus back to the center of town and from there found my way to the famous Richmond Theater for my 2. 30 show–but not before I popped into the Cancer Research Charity shop and found myself a lovely English bone china cup and saucer to add to my collection at home. It caught my eye because it was so unusual–a matt black background suddenly opens up to a white glazed border on both cup and saucer that sports the Greek key design. It was these differences in texture that so fascinated me and at 3. 50 pounds, I could not go wrong.

The reason I was at Richmond Theater was to see Alan Ackybourne’s Tons of Money which stars Christopher Timothy whom I have grown to love so much in the TV series from the 70s and 80s called All Creatures Great and Small in which Timothy plays the role of Yorkshire vet James Herriott. I have to say that I was sorely disappointed, first of all, to discover that he had rather a small role (he played the Butler Spruze) and, second, that age has taken its toll on him so that he looks most unlike his younger self. He has filled out considerably, his hair has long abandoned him and his features too have changed. But for his voice (one can never change one’s voice), there is little resemblance to the actor of old who so stole my heart away.

One of the many surprises of this afternoon was the presence in the cast of Janet Henfrey (who plays Mrs. Bale in the BBC TV series As Time Goes By). This is the second time I have seen her on stage–she was present in The Importance of Being Ernest starring Penelope Keith that I saw at the Vaudeville Theater at the Strand last March with my friend Amy Tobin). The play was entertaining but not worth the long hike to Richmond unless one combines it with a walk as I did. At any rate, the theater was only half full, but I swear I was the youngest person in the audience! Everyone around me was silver haired and was no doubt there out of nostalgia for the good old days of the telly when Christopher Timothy made evening viewing special.

Then, I was on the bus again headed back to the city because, unwittingly, I had booked tickets for two plays on the same day (not having my calendar with me when I had booked a ticket for Tons of Money in December when I had gone to see Peter Pan, the Christmas pantomime at Richmond Theater). I knew that I would arrive in the city rather early–my next show (Oliver starring Rowan Atkinson in the role of Fagin) was not until 7. 30 pm at the Royal Theater on Drury Lane (this is the third show I am seeing there after French and Saunders Live and another one whose name I cannot now recall).

Having about an hour to kill, I hopped off at Trafalgar Square hoping that the National Gallery would have a late evening closing–and how right I was. A quick look at “Today’s Program” at the Sainsbury Entrance informed me that there was a free piano recital starting at 6 pm in Gallery 18. So off I went to take my place on a chair right in front of the baby grand piano that graced the gallery on a lovely Oriental carpet. The two performers of the evening were Kentaro Nagai and David Malusa, both from the Royal College of Music who kept me enthralled with an hour long program that included a fantastia and fugue by Bach, an unbelievable Ballad by Chopin, Iberian music from Spanish composes Mompou and Albeniz and a stunning work by Schumann. I could not have asked for a better way to spend an hour. This is what I most love about living in London. I come upon these cultural surprises in the most unexpected of ways and because I have so few commitments here, I can seize the opportunity to enjoy them as and when they present themselves.

Then, I was off on the bus again heading towards Aldwych where at Drury Lane, I hopped off to get to the Theater Royal. I keep forgetting how gorgeous the interior of these theaters are. This one is splendid–with fat putti adorning its walls in the lavish plasterwork along the ceiling and outside the boxes. The only horrid thing about this theater is that the balcony is about seven floors high–you feel as if you have scaled Mount Everest by the time you get to your seat–and being a ‘graded’ building, they cannot install elevators inside.

The auditorium was packed to capacity (as the play won some terrific reviews when it opened a couple of weeks ago). All around me were American college students, one of whom informed me that they were from Long Island’s Hofstra University studying British Drama for a month during their winter break. They were fidgety and noisy (as American students usually are), made inane comments during the interval (“That scene with Bumble was so sexual. She wasn’t supposed to hit on him like that” and “We were sitting at the worst possible angle for that scene”–it happened to be one in which Beadle’s wife bared her cleavage in a seduction scene!). I enjoyed these comments but the very proper English lady sitting besides me was besides herself with outrage at the behavior of the sprightly Americans and at the fact that she had to “get up and down and up and down” to accommodate their frequent passage to and from their seats!

Oliver was superb. I did not realize that some of the songs I have known since my childhood (Oom-Pah-Pah, I’d Do Anything) are from this musical. Apart from the stars (Rowan Atkinson whom I first got to know as Mr. Bean is unforgettable as Fagin and he can sing!–as is Jodi Prenger as Nancy), the little guy who played the Artful Dodger was amazing. Sets were truly stunning and the recreation of Victorian England so appealing visually that for a while I seemed to have transported myself to a different world altogether. It was truly one of the finest shows I have seen since arriving in London in September and I could understand why the critics have been raving about it.

Two plays in the same day, a musical concert, a sunny walk in Richmond…truly it was a day packed with pleasurable activity and by the time I was riding the bus back home, I felt culturally saturated. I could only talk to Llew for a few minutes before I called it a night.

Looking Back Over Four Months in London

Dec17

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
London

I fell in love with London a long time ago–22 years ago to be precise–and I have never felt any differently. If anything, the past four months have deepened my attachment to this city. It is a funny feeling–to be a Londoner and a visitor at the same time. Despite the fact that I have worked here, the last four month have felt like an endless vacation.

Yet, so much water has flowed under the Thames since Llew and I hauled our eight suitcases out of the cab that balmy summer’s night in August. Even though I have scoured the furthest reaches of this city so thoroughly that I ended up with an inflammation of my plantar fasciia, I still feel as if I have only scratched the surface. Every night before I fall asleep, I think with wonder about all the things I will do the next day. As Robert Frost wrote, I literally feel as if I have miles to go before I sleep!!!

So what have I accomplished in nearly four months? Well, I have taken about 6 self-guided walking tours that introduced me to corners tucked far away from prying eyes and quarters whose cobbled streets are hoary with history. Clubs and pubs, churches and cathedrals, sprawling parks and secret gardens, museums and art galleries, colleges and libraries…I have been there, done that, and felt fiercely fulfilled. I started a systematic study of the collections in the National Gallery and, before my feet gave way, completed my perusal of the Sainsbury Wing. In the British Museum, which I visited often, I saw the remnant highlights of so many ancient cultures. I also ‘did’ the Tate London, the Geffrye Museum and the National Portrait Gallery and will keep the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum for next semester.

Professionals entertained and delighted me everywhere I went through theater and opera. In the Globe Theater, I marvelled at the Shakespearean magic of the verse and the virtuosity of the players. I saw celebrity actors whose names have shone often in lights–Dame Aileen Atkins and Ian McDiarmid, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders and Vanessa Redgrave. Not just were these thespians quite splendid on stage but the venues in which they performed were equally astonishing–from the Vaudeville Theater at the Strand to the historic Drury Lane Theater, each interior was a masterpiece of design and decoration hinting at the fact that, over the centuries, a visit to the theater was a glitzy occasion indeed.

As for cuisine, what a long way London has come. I have tasted Vietnamese pho and Turkish mezes, sampled the variety to be found on a thali and in the sleight of hand of Italian chefs who have a magical way with pasta. The foodie in me was deeply satisfied by the culinary offerings of every curve of the globe. I had thought that being alone in the city, I would probably never eat out at all. How pleasantly surprized I was to receive invitiations from new friends and generous neighbors who took me out to meals that were superlative as well as entertained me in their own domains with their own home-cooked signature dishes–not to mention the friendship provided by my colleague Karen and her husband Douglas, foodies both with a connoissuer’s palate to boot. I have eaten candy from a bygone era with names like honeycomb and eclairs and rum bonbons; as for my inner chocoholic, why, it was more than pleased by truffles flavored with honey and strawberries, lavender and coffee in Hope and Greenwood’s old fashioned shop as much as it was tantalized by the offerings of the more pricey French and Belgain chocolatiers.

Talking about cuisine, marketing has become for me the high point of my week. Never having shopped at street markets previously, I have become addicted to the one on Leather Lane where I buy my stock of Greek dolmas and mozzarella cheese, sun dried tomatoes and pesto. In the Food Halls at Harrods and Fortnum and Mason, I have been seduced by the novelty of steamed puddings with peculiar names: sticky toffee and spotted dick; by jams such as rhubarb and ginger and three fruit marmalade; fruity flapjack biscuits and ginger and orange cookies laced with chocolate have enticed me incessantly and become my ‘tea’ accompaniments; even the crisps have exotic flavorings such as Thai red chilli and roast beef with mustard, barbecued chicken and garlic with lemon grass; I have tasted elderflower wine and lavender honey, little tubs of potted shrimps and smoked salmon pate, artisinal cheeses from every farm in the country and Stiltons studded with apricot and ginger, dried dates and candied oranges. For breakfast, I have eaten sausages with strange names like chipolata and Cumberland and I can never decide which ones are tastier. And then Yuletide brought its own share of irresistible treats: mulled wine and mince pies, I discovered, are every bit as scrumptious as they sound. And when I have felt homesick for a curry, why, the likes of Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury and Tesco have been only to happy to oblige my native tastes with their offerings of Lamb Rogan Josh and Prawn Vindaloo, and Chicken every which way you can imagine–Makhanwalla, Jalfrezi, Korma and Tikka Masala! I am ashamed to say that I have almost stopped cooking, so eager have I been to sample local delicacies…and I have rarely been disappointed.

It is hard for me to believe that only a few miles within Greater London lie quaint villages that border the placid Thames, each characterized by snooty estates and picturesque ponds with trailing willows and hungry mallards. At Old Isleworth, I visited magnificent Syon House and Park. I gazed upon gold-fringed trees at Richmond Hill and enjoyed the view that Mick Jagger gazes on daily from his own bedroom window; while at Richmond Park I looked upon huge herds of deer roaming freely in the watery autumn sunshine. At Barnes, I crossed the sprawling haunted ‘Commons’ that gave me the creeps.

The second best part of being in London was discovering the bus system and the wallet-friendly Monthly Pass that took me to parts of the city that I never knew existed. I had always love the Tube but I have now developed an affection for those lumbering red double deckers as well. I went to Ealing and Greenford, Harrow and Acton, Shoreditch and Stratford and even to Essex in the course of my research–parts of the city that were distant yet cost me mere pennies per mile covered.

The best part of being in London, however, has been the new friends I have made who reached out their hands so warmly in friendship. For a country whose people (at least in the States) have a reputation for reserve that has been politely referred to as European sang-froid, I have found the English deeply welcoming and genuinely eager to share their homes and their hearts with me. My next-door neighbors, Tim and Barbara have been an incredible blessing as has Milan who lives down the hall. Janie Yang who introduced me to her artsy friends has always been there for me. Cynthia and Bishop Michael Colclough showed concern when I was laid up at home and then provided me with a stack of tickets to so many marvelous cultural evenings at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Chriselle’s colleague Ivana has been a fun conpanion on walks in Chelsea and Battersea. I find it impossible to believe that four months ago I did not know any of these folks at all. As for living alone in the city (a prospect that offered its own load of concerns), I need never have worried. Between my concierge Arben and our janitor Martha, I am waited on hand and foot and I feel throughly pampered by their care and attention.

Like Bill Bryson and Susan Allen Toth and other travel writers who fell under the spell of the city, I too am quite besotted by London and I can’t wait to resume my rambles come the new year.

Face to Face with an Auto-Icon

Nov21

Friday, November 21, 2008
London

NYU-London has the rather unusual custom of ‘making up’ days lost to holidays. Because we recently had a week’s long Fall Break which caused my students to miss one class, we had a ‘make-up’ class today. This meant that I taught for 2 straight days in a row, something of a change for me–though I better get used to this as I have a Monday and Tuesday schedule for next semester.

So, it was something of a ho-hum kind of day–nothing very exciting happened. I taught my classes and but for the fact that I used my lunch break to go out in search of a true oddity at University College, London, there’s not much to report.

But the oddity was horribly odd indeed. I went to see the “auto-icon” of Jeremy Bentham whose name you might recognize as the 19th century philosopher/economist who came up with the theory that the greatest happiness of the greatest number would make for the greatest harmony in society. He was one of the founders of University College, London, and since he wanted to remain a part of the institution long after he passed away, he decreed in his will that his body (read skeleton) should be placed in a prominent part of the university where all could see it and that he should be dressed in one of the suits he usually wore. The Dean of our program, the newly re-christened Liberal Studies Program at New York University, Fred Schwarzbach, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of London, told me about Bentham’s bizarre will way back in September and I had been promising myself that I would take a stroll there to see it for myself.

I had to ask around to find my way to the right spot. I stopped one of the UCL undergrads walking by me andd said, “Excuse me…can you tell me where the auto-icon of Jeremy Bentham is?” She responded in all seriousness, “Well, I don’t know where that is…I know where HE is”. Oh well!

I expected to see a body lying in a coffin or, at any rate, in a horizontal position. Imagine my shock when I found Bentham’s skeleton, all fleshed out, of course, clothed in one of the stipulated suits, sitting in the foyer of the college’s grand Neo-Classical building complete with dome and quadrangle, in what looks like a telephone booth with a small tea table by his side. Apparently, the head which for some reason, was detachable, used to be used by students as a football and the governors of the college finally thought it fit to place it in a safe in the college. The head that now sits on Bentham’s body in the booth is a wax replica–the kind of thing that you see at Madame Tussaud’s. At any rate, I only stayed there for a couple of minutes, read the extract from Bentham’s will and the explanatory note put up by UCL and fled because it gave me the creeps. Between the day I spent in Barnes and this afternoon, I seem to have had too many close encounters with ghosts, dead bodies, coffins and graveyards.

After teaching my two classes today, I took the bus and went to the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square where I spent an hour and a half completing my perusal of the portraits on the second floor. In a museum in which art works are arranged chronologically, I have now gone as far as the 19th century and shall start with the contemporary sections on my visits in the next couple of weeks. It is hugely enlightening to read the curator’s notes that provide wonderful information on the sitters and the painters. My Writing students are working on an assignment that requires them to research and respond to three portraits in the museum and my visits have allowed me to study the ones on which they have chosen to focus.

I also realized, after having looked at them more closely that the Annie Liebovitz portraits of the Queen are not in black and white (as first appeared to me) but in faint color–they look as if they are in black and white because her expressions are so forbidding, so lacking in any color (pun intended!). There is a special retrospective on Liebovitz’s portraits at the Museum at the moment and I intend to spend an evening studying them carefully.

It is expected to turn bitterly cold overnight–of course, that would have to happen on the eve of the day I have chosen to visit Cambridge. Still, I refuse to allow this to chill my enthusiasm. I shall bundle up and be gone at the crack of dawn in time to catch my 8.30 am coach at Victoria. I intend to use the journey to read up on Cambridge from the pages that I have photocopied from many guide books and if the weather promises to be as biting as the forecasters have predicted,I shall probably spend a great deal of time in the Fitzwilliam Museum rather than on the banks of the River Cam! This will not be half bad as the last time I was in Cambridge, 22 years ago, I did not have the opportunity to visit the Fitzwilliam because I had dallied too long in the Backs! Well, even if I had to wait for 22 years, I am sure the contents of the museum will make it seem worth the long wait.

Alas, Something of a Set Back

Nov20

November 20, 2008
London

I am saddened to admit that I have had something of a set back and purely because I brought it upon myself by my long walk yesterday in Barnes. It is now clear to me that no matter how improved my feet feel, I still cannot thwart their limitations. There is now only so much walking I can do before my feet begin to show the ill-effects of such exercise. This morning, it was not just my left knee that felt uneasy but, sigh, my right knee as well–and this knee has never shown any signs of wear prior to this.

On the other hand, this new knee constriction might be a result of new knee-focused exercises that my physiotherapist Megan has asked me to do. They are challenging, create a burn in the knee area and could well be producing this reaction. Who knows? I do admit that I overdid it yesterday; but it is my belief that, in the long run, these new exercises will strengthen the knee muscles and that eventually all pain will disappear. But for the next two days, I will take it easy.

I took the bus to get to our Bedford Square campus today and also rode the bus back. Since I am teaching tomorrow as well (make-up class for the day we missed during Fall Break), I came straight back home to prepare my lecture for my class on Anglo-Indians in the two World Wars. Besides, Karen, my colleague, with whom I usually keep a dinner date on Thursday evenings, was also out of sorts, having picked up a stomach bug probably in Turkey where she spent fall break. She bowed out of our Thursday arrangement and also went straight home after teaching her class. With just three weeks to go before we pull the curtain down on the semester, everyone is feeling a little jaded, most of all my students who see the finish line ahead and are pushing themselves to crank out papers and start studying for final exams.

I finished editing my Christmas essay for The Examiner and should have it in the bag by tomorrow when I will email it to the editor.

Also with Ryan Air having emailed me information about their new free tickets drive, I managed to book tickets to Berlin once again and propose to be there at the end of January. There was also room at the Youth Hostel and I went ahead and made my reservations there as well. Hopefully, this time, I will be able to keep my date with the Fatherland!

I shall probably watch a little bit of Clockwork Orange over dinner and then have an early night.

Hauntingly Beautiful Barnes!

Nov19

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Barnes

I awoke to a sunshiny morning and felt the day just hollerin’ mah name! Unable to resist, I finished grading another batch of student essays, caught up with my parents in Bombay, mapped out a route I would take to Barnes exclusively using the buses and set out with map, hat, camera, water and packed lunch.

It has now become something of an adventure to find my way to my destination using only buses. My monthly bus pass (purchased yesterday) allows me to use the bus network anywhere in London. That is pretty incredible and I decided that I must squeeze maximum value of out it. So since I am teaching both tomorrow and on Thursday this week and am going to spend Saturday in Cambridge, I figured today would be the best date to make use of it.

So off I went. I took Bus 19 from Gray’s Inn Lane and Theobald’s Road to Piccadilly Road from where I transferred to Bus 22 going to Putney. The driver was so kind and so informative. When I told him that I was headed to Barnes, he told me to hop off at Putney Bridge and catch Bus 485 from The Embankment (this is the Thames Embankment at Putney). This bus took me to Barnes Pond from where my walk began. I used Frommer’s 24 Great Walks in London and had the glories of a stunning fall day all to myself to celebrate the season, the weather, nature and the joy of being alive and (almost) recovered from Plantar Fascittis.

I had been to Barnes before, a few years ago, on an exploration of the Thames. I remembered how charming this little village was and how difficult it was to believe that I was not twelve miles outside London. This time round, my forays began at Barnes Pond where the few yellow leaves still clinging to the trees made the scene magical. It was as if a bag of gold flakes had been shaken over the trees to bring them some holiday sparkle. As the ducks and the swans skimmed the surface of the pond in which a few stray weeping willows were also reflected, I thought of Shakespeare’s sonnet:

That time of year that mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or few, or none do hang
Upon those boughs that shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

It was so heartachingly beautiful and my heart sang in ecstasy at the warmth and splendour of the season. Temperature-wise, it was cold…colder than I had expected–I have yet to learn how to interpret Celsius temperatures–what does 9 degrees mean? I had worn a long sleeved cotton shirt, a cashmere cardigan and a suede jacket and I had thought those would be sufficient. But how mistaken I was. I really ought to have worn my down jacket, a scarf and my gloves too. Oh well…live and learn. NO regrets, though. Once I strode briskly along, I warmed up a little bit. And oh, I was also grateful for my new Ecco shoes which fit like a dream and made me feel as if I were walking on a cloud.

Across Barnes Green, I arrived at the memorial to rock singer Marc Bolan who was huge when I was in high school. He died suddenly in the 1970s when his girl friend who was driving a car back from a party, lost control. Bolan died instantly, his side of the car taking the ferocity of the blow. The memorial is placed on the exact spot in which he died. It is a quiet, almost hidden spot and is deeply moving. Placed there on the 25th anniversary of his death, it is also stirring for those of us who are Bolan’s contemporaries. He died just before he turned thirty and it made me realize how death has frozen him in age and time–he will forever remain young. Wasn’t it Laurence Binyon who wrote in his poem “For the Fallen” these lines when talking about England’s tragically lost war dead?

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

I thought of those lines at Bolan’s memorial, then, in thoughtful silence, resumed my walk across Barnes Common. I was the only walker on this rather chilly day and I have to admit that I started to feel jittery about halfway across it. It didn’t help that my walking notes informed me that I was entering the least frequented part of the Common, a part of London in which the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin lay in wait with his accomplice for people crossing the Common then attacked and robbed them. A little later on the same walk was a part of the Common in which a lone walker once reported being waylaid by a frightful creature who scaled the iron railings that bordered the park and landed in front of him with a thud. For years after that, walkers all over the vicinity reported sightings of a hideous creature who appeared fearsomely and scared the living daylights out of them. I decided that I would not walk alone in such deserted stretches again–at least not on days when most people are tucked up cozily by roaring fires at home!

Just when my thoughts threatened to make me feel deeply uneasy, I reached the end of the deserted stretch and found a bench on which to eat my sandwich lunch. A few people passed by, clad warmly to walk their dogs, their garb including the traditional olive-green very English “wellies”. When my feet had rest sufficiently, I resumed the walk again, this time arriving at Milbourne House, the home that 18th century novelist Henry Fielding had purchased just before he became a success with the pulication of his novel Tom Jones. Surprisingly, no one I asked knew where Milbourne House was though it stared them in the face not two hundred yards away!

Around the corner from the antiquated Essex Lodge, I walked along Barnes High Street with its rather smart shops to The Terrace, a quieter embankment which I recalled having walked over the last time I was in Barnes. There was Barnes Bridge with a pretty part of Hammersmith evident in the distance at the opposite end. I walked beneath it, passed the house once occupied by composer Gustav Holst and arrived at the historic White Hart Pub for which the White Hart Lane is named.

This street contains a number of very enticing stores selling one-of-a-kind items. Two of my favorite stores are on this street–The Dining Room Shop and Tobias and the Angel. The former was so crammed with shoppers that I wondered if there was a pre-Christmas sale on! They fell all over the merchandise which consists of antiques for the dining table including crystal and glassware, china and linen. There were baubles and ornaments of every variety and a whole load of items that would make handsome gifts–no wonder everyone and her sister was there! Best part of all was the fragrance in the store and whether these came from the bags of pot pourri (“still only ten pounds”) or the candles that lent their golden glow to the room, I am uncertain. Business was brisk and items were flying off the shelves. What I did know was that though I did not intend to shop, I could hardly tear myself away.

But then just next door, “The Angel” sat in her shop which exuded the mouthwatering aroma of freshly baked mince pies. This store features handmade ornaments, mainly made of fabric and scraps of vintage material. It also sells antiques with a ‘country’ feel–lamp shades and pitchers and bowls and and accessories such as scented pouches filled with dried lavender. Though I have little doubt that all these things are handmade, I find it hard to reconcile the prices which are just outrageous. While I saw many browsers such as myself, I saw few buyers–which, I suppose, speaks for itself.

I then rounded a lane and found my way to the Roman Catholic Church of Mary Magdalen where in the adjoining graveyard was the strangest memorial in the world! This one commemorates the death of Richard Burton…no, not the actor, but the author, linguist and translator of The Arabian Nights. As a tribute to the long years he spent in Arabia, his memorial is a Bedouin tent! If you climb the ladder at the back–which I did–and peer into the glass window, you can actually see the ornate coffins of himself and his wife, Isabelle Arundel. I was so spooked by this sight that I quickly scrambled down the ladder and rushed out of the graveyard!
But then as I was leaving, in the midst of all those aged gravestones, mossy with the passage of time (Burton died in the 1880s), I passed a freshly-dug grave whose marble headstone was sprinkled over with pure white marble pieces. “This can’t be an old grave”, I thought. And so I paused to read the headstone and I swear, you could have knocked me down with a feather. The grave contained the body of a man who had been born in 1904 and had died in 1933. In the very same grave was buried his wife, a woman named Edith, who was born in 1905 and who had died in March of this year! Yes, she died at the age of 103 having spent 75 years as a widow!!! I couldn’t help but stare and imagine all those years that she lived alone, without another companion in her life. Somehow, the sight left me feeling terribly despondent while, at the same time, stirred by her extraordinary devotion to her husband.

Soon, I was crossing the street to get into yet another churchyard–this one the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Mortlake. Dating from the mid-1500s, the church is notable for its graveyard which won the award for Best Maintained Graveyard in 2001–imagine that! They actually do award prizes of this kind! A plaque inside explained the history of the grave sites. The oldest dates from the 1600s and many of them contain the remains of figures who were prominent in their respective fields in their day and age. I also visited the inside of the church which was eerily quiet and empty and had me rushing off in a hurry.

Then, before the sun quite set, I decided to find my way back home on the buses. I did so enjoy the long bus ride coming in and it was better on my return. The discovery of new spaces always interests me and the villages on the banks of the Thames are especially pretty containing as they do some very pricey real estate and very fancy shops that cater to the upscale tastes of this segment of suburban London.

I hope now to explore Putney and Chiswick and Hampstead and over the course of the month, before I return to the US and India for my winter break, I will have covered some pretty fascinating pockets of the city.

Back home, with my feet and my legs protesting loudly, I worked on a feature article for the Christmas issue of The Examiner, a Catholic weekly in Bombay, to which I have contributed a Christmas essay for the past six years. Naturally, since this is my first Christmas in England, I decided to pen a piece about my impressions which have been ‘cooking’ for several weeks in my head. I entitled the essay “Yuletide in Ole’ Blighty”.

I have finished the first draft and will start to improve on it over the next couple of days before I send it off for publication.