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The world our oyster
The shop at the London Transport Museum provides a fantastic insight to the psyche of this nation. Where else could you buy the complete series of Omnibus Routes of London, volumes one to five, or The Extension of the Jubilee line, 1968 to 1973? What next, a history of Central Line escalators, from the Napoleonic era to the present day? Currently available for purchase a complete set of DVDs giving a driver’s eye view of every tube line. The Bakerloo Line, What the driver sees, and so on. This is the underground; don’t they realize it is dark down there? Or perhaps it is the same DVD, just with different covers.
The tube itself provides a similar insight into the stoical Brit reserve. Etiquette again. While the young are absorbed in their IP3 players, the older read newspapers and no-one, but no-one, make eye contact or talks to others. Except, that is, for us, but only to acknowledge an unprovoked assault on another passenger. This came as I hauled a heavy suitcase onto a packed, rush-hour tube, swung it round in a manner resembling an Olympic hammer thrower in a desperate bid to get on board and secure seat, and whereupon, with its full momentum, the case crashed into the leg of a suited gentleman with a force sufficient to separate limb from torso. Exhibiting the true character which put the Great into Great Britain, the gentleman graciously apologized for my carelessness and I, just as graciously, accepted.
One thing worth mentioning is the oyster card, a pre-paid debit card which is used for bus and tube fares. Only it is clever enough to calculate the most effective concession fare for the day or week and adjust the card’s balance accordingly. Small things might amuse small minds but, given there are about 5 million users of the tube system, this is very sophisticated indeed. How does it know?
But to culture. Yesterday we went to the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square to an exhibition by Annie Leibovitz, who made her name as a photographer for Rolling Stone and then Vanity Fare and Vogue. She has done some stunning work, including the famous John Lennon in foetal pose lying on Yoko Ono, the pregnant Demi Moore Vogue cover and many of the Rolling Stones themselves and other stars. But this was more a personal exhibition, recording the illness and death of her friend, Susan Sontag, the election to Senate of Hilary Clinton, the birth and early years of her children and a few landscapes. Familiar stuff for us, Wadi Rum and Petra in Jordan, Venice, and Sissinghurst, the garden of Vita Sackville-West in the South of England.
Currently we are in preparation for a weekend trip to Oxford to stay with cousin Jani and her husband Rob. Last time there, we cycled down the Thames tow path, rendering backsides black and bruised, so perhaps this time we will stick to walking.