London, the Conference, the Tube strike, the Garrick Club...part one.

Where do I start? This has been a summer of travel, and after being untethered for so long, it's difficult to pull the balloon down and anchor it with some words about what we've seen. So, as usual, I will start in the middle and spin out events from both ends in the hope of meeting myself somewhere along the way. Sequence goes out the window; what you see is the stuff that stuck to the canvas, and maybe a little of what slid off onto the floor.

London, first. In a rare moment of common sense, we flew to Heathrow on the daytime flight, arriving at about 10:30 PM--not exactly rested, but nowhere near as jet-lagged as we've been on other occasions. A good night's sleep and a mind-numbing traffic-jam-ridden trip into the city later, we arrived at Boodles (Ian Fleming's--and thus, James Bond's--club just off Piccadilly) and dropped our bags. We headed for the Tate and had lunch, then gawked at paintings. 

We met a large format canvas from the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery: King Lear--and had our first Folger moment. Folger has a large format Romeo and Juliet scene, that we docents mention as being so big that it had to be removed from its frame in order to be brought into the Reading Room. Now we could see how big BIG is. Standing next to the painting where it hung on a normal wall, we could see it was twice our height. It's hard to see that on the R&J as it is hung high on the wall above the RR balcony. (It's fair to say right here that Folger connections were everywhere we went--sometimes sought out, sometimes purely coincidental...) 

As part of JC's meeting, next morning we visited The National Geographical Society. I found it disappointing. Lots of portraits of lots of explorers. Lots of Antarctic material. Lots of famous Brits whose exploits were unknown to me. Lots of mentions of lack of funding. Yes. The next day at the British Library, we fared better. Maps! Journals! (And if you are surprised to hear me getting excited about maps, I wholly understand. I'm not sure why, (perhaps only by contrast with the Geographical Society egg-laying) but the maps were fascinating. Henry Stanley and Dr. Livingstone's maps and journals were right there on the table, full of amazingly detailed notes about conversations with natives and carefully crafted hand-drawn maps of their travels in their huge journals. Darkest Africa--revealed! I somewhat resented the intrusion of the little guy in charge of the conference when he launched off into a critique of The African Queen and how one of the maps showed errors in the screenplay. Thank you. I would rather imagine Stanley's REAL journeys than a fictional Hollywood one. 

Also at the British Library was an exhibit on the Magna Carta, which is celebrating an anniversary this year. An impressive testament to the history of British (and American) law. And in a somewhat strange addition to the exhibit, a woman had embroidered (with the help of a number of prisoners) the Wikipedia entry (complete with illustrations and pictures) on the Magna Carta. Why Wikipedia? Who knows? 

No account of our week in London would be complete without the mention of the Tube strike. For more than 24 hours, the workers on the London Underground stopped, leaving millions of people at the mercy of traffic, buses, taxis--and ever-present roadwork. Traffic exceeded any I've seen anywhere. A taxi driver told us that 4 million people come into London to work each day--and I think we saw most of them. Needless to say, we did a lot of walking. The evening of the conference dinner (I won't talk about that) we came out around 10 PM to find all the streets doing their rendition of New Year's Eve in Times Square: crowds of people everywhere, crammed buses, bus stops swamped with people, all taxis occupied...we ended up taking a pedi-cab back to Boodles. Fortunately, the folks were back on the job the next day, and we were back to using our trusty Oyster cards.

What else? Before the tumult of the strike, we had made dinner reservations at The Garrick Club, which has a reciprocal arrangement with Washington's Metropolitan Club, just as Boodles does. And so we went to Leicester Square and wandered around till we located the club. We were early and asked the porter if we might have a look around before dinner. He told us to go ahead...and so we did. Folger moments galore. 

First, at the top of the staircase was a portrait of Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth. The one that the Folger has an engraving of in the administrative hall. The painting is better. There were also innumerable paintings of actors and actresses the length and breadth and height of the staircase. Heads swiveling and steps slowing at each recognition, we made our way to the second floor. There was more. More pictures, more display cases filled with small items belonging to Henry Irving or David Garrick or...well, name an actor, any actor. JC found a book that the porter had mentioned that identified each portrait. We went into the bar, got a drink and pored over the book. We met a member with a pink and blue (club colors) tie who said we should meet the secretary and arrange a proper tour. And he found her for us. We arranged to come back the next day and meet the librarian. Then, our first guy called out to another member, who had written the history of the club. We asked where we could buy one, and he called out for the bartender to bring us one, autographed it, then proceeded to guide us through all the portraits on the walls of the bar. Did we know that Sir John Gielgud had initially been blackballed because he was gay? And yes, he was subsequently admitted. Noel Coward,  Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, actresses we didn't know, and some that everyone did. Wow.

As if that little intro was not enough, the dinner was wonderful. More later.