Katie And Dive Do London Pt.7

Oh, woe is me!
Alas and alack for today is the final post in our Katie series and I have to bite back the tears as she heads off to Paris and eventually back to San Francisco and home to Berkeley, taking the sunshine - and a little piece of the hearts of everyone who has met her - back to that beautiful city on the bay.

Yesterday left us walking hastily away from my office toward the river, where we find Tate Britain, our last gallery of the day.

Much to Katie's bemusement, Martin Creed's latest work is still going on in the main hall (and will be for a few weeks more yet).
"Work no.850" involves an athlete running the length of the gallery every thirty seconds.
Supposedly some kind of link to the 2012 Olympics and the silly idea of making it a "Cultural Olympics" to draw in more tourists, the first day saw all the famous athletes and medal winners from Beijing hurtling headlong past the press cameras; now we are down to the hopefuls for 2012 and the gallery is considerably less crowded, so we are disappointed in our expectation of seeing a runner smashing full tilt into a crowd of visitors.
Hey ho.

We are really here to see the "late works" room in the Turner galleries but why waste the opportunity of having a good poke around?
Aha!
Katie immediately spots a mosaic and - as photography is not allowed, we sneak off non-flash photos when nobody is looking.

I make a point of introducing Katie to the creepy Cholmondeley Sisters, one of the strangest and most disturbing paintings ever; and hanging next to it of course, Robyn's famous "That man's got no trousers on!" painting.

Millais' Mariana and Ophelia - which usually hang side by side - are out on loan at the moment, which is a pity as they are my companions on many a rainy lunchtime, but there is plenty more to marvel at.
For one thing, Katie has never seen any Gwen John paintings until today.

After a good look around we head for the wing that houses the Clore Gallery where the Turners are kept.
Upstairs there is a cute little interactive exhibition illustrating Turner's techniques and use of colour and a room full of paper and pencils where you are invited to copy Turner's drawings and display them.

Here is Katie on the upstairs balcony above the main Turner room, trying to stay still as it is pretty dark in here and the exposure takes ages without flash.

This is a little bit of my favourite room at Tate Britain. It is hung with a selection of Turner's late and unfinished "mad" paintings; those glorious attempts of the batty, half-blind old codger to "paint light".

Everybody who visits London should see this room and marvel at the sheer intensity of Turner's vision.
Unfortunately we didn't have time when Mme and MB visited, but I recall "Eustacia", Elizabeth and mum resting their weary legs, flaked out on that seat while Robyn and myself explored the paintings and shared a little bit of the magic of this wonderful place.

And now it is "chucking out time". Katie and I have outstayed our welcome and we exit the gallery beside the Thames as the late afternoon sun glints off the Spook House (MI6 HQ; somewhere in there is Miss. Moneypenny's office).

Looking east, the Eye is bathed in warm sunshine and the river - for once - looks something other than its usual fœtid brown.
It is such a lovely evening that we decide to wander slowly back toward the West End and hunt for a restaurant in the back-streets of Soho.

Just along the river is this little garden beside the Palace of Westminster where the evening sun is lighting up the gorgeous sandstone of Victoria Tower with a beautiful, buttery glow.
I swear I didn't see that girl in the miniskirt until I downloaded the photos. Honest!

While we are here I simply must sneak into the corner of the garden and check to see if I was hallucinating the last time I was here.
Woohoo!
It is still there!
La Vache!
I've yet to figure this one out … What on earth is a statue of a cow doing in Victoria Tower Garden? And why is it dressed in the robes of the House of Lords?
It seems happy enough to be there so we leave it to its ruminations.

By this time the day is drawing to an end and the Eye and Westminster Bridge are suffused with the warmth of the dying light of an autumn evening.

Katie calls out "That's The Burghers Of Calais, isn't it?" and heads for the statue by Victoria Tower.
As she gets closer her smile broadens …
"I know my Rodin!"
And she is right, of course. What a smartypants!

The Burghers do look pretty wretched and miserable awaiting execution, having sacrificed themselves to save their townsfolk, but then they weren't to know at that moment that Philippa of Hainault would spare their lives.
Rodin apparently never completed the second statue "The Burghers Of Calais Celebrate Their Reprieve By Getting Totally Shitfaced And Dancing Like Your Dad."

Katie and Dive head back yet again across Parliament Square and on into St.James's Park, stopping briefly to watch the sun set over the Parasite House.
The pelicans are already asleep on their island and as night falls around us it is time to hit the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus and find somewhere to have dinner.

Wending our curious way through the narrow, darkened streets and alleys, past shouty, singing drunks and through thronging crowds of party people, we check out the plethora of international cuisines available in the maze of back-streets that is Soho; that ancient den of iniquity and … er … lapdancing clubs where all the good little restaurants tend to cluster.

Head waiters leap from entrances as soon as we start reading their menus but we resist their blandishments and decide to plump for the Mumbai in Denman Street.

Katie has never had "proper Indian" as we call the Bangladeshi cuisine that constitutes most of England's national dishes.
The Raj lasted for so long that Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi cuisine and culture is as much a part of England as steak and kidney pie and London buses.

This - sadly - is my last photo of Katie (sob).
Here we have just enjoyed a yummy starter of prawn puri; a deliciously spiced dish served up on that most buttery of puffy, fried breads with a cucumber raitha.

We avoid the stupidly hot dishes as this is Katie's first foray into the sub-continent and she chooses a prawn Madras while I have an excellent fish bhuna; which we accompany with mouth-watering side dishes of sag aloo, bindhi and brinjal bhajis and sag paneer, plus beautifully sweet pewshwari naan and basmati rice.
Oh, and Indian Kingfisher lager, of course!

And we talk and talk and talk …

At last it is time to go home and we catch a tube at Piccadilly Circus that will carry Katie safely back to Bloomsbury and her hotel.
We say farewell at Holborn tube station with hugs and smiles and a promise to meet up in Paris this time next year …
… and then she is gone.
Whisked away toward St.Pancras …
A sad Dive walks the escalators toward the Central Line on my way to catch the late train home.
I sigh and smile at all the happy memories of the past two days but it's going to be a long, cold and lonely journey back to my empty house.

Katie will still be in London until the following afternoon, meeting Rose from Canterbury Daily Photo for a meal and a trip on the Eye.

Old Dive sits on the train in the dark, smiling as I flick through the photos on my little screen.

The day after next, with Katie back in Paris, Rose sends me a wonderful present, entitled "Katie Reading Dive's Blog".

Here is Katie out to lunch with Rose in Covent Garden, reading my first "Katie And Dive Do London" post on Rose's iPhone.

It has been a marvellous couple of days. We have walked several thousand miles and enjoyed so many galleries, exhibitions and mosaics and done so much sightseeing we have almost worn our eyes out.

Most importantly we have become friends and next autumn in Paris I know we shall strengthen that friendship.

A million thanks, Katie!
See you in Paris!

Katie And Dive Do London Pt.6

In today's post, Katie and Dive find the last mosaics on our list and they don't disappoint us.
Dive also gets a teensy bit sweary and offensive (so what's new?), so be warned; you might just want to look at the pictures instead of reading.

Leaving Downing Street - where we finished up yesterday - to be refurbished by Murphy's the builders, we amble back across Parliament Square (for the umpteenth but not the last time) and wander off toward Victoria, stopping on our way at Broad Sanctuary to photograph this …

Yup: tourist time again, it's Westminster Abbey of course.
Robyn should recognise this scene as it is right there on the corner behind those taxis that we first met. And of course Mme. and MB, who I dragged here on our way to the Eye.

Toddling off along Victoria Street in the direction of New Scotland Yard Katie points out this spiffy window display and we pose for a photo together (the only one we've got, so make the most of it).

A little further along the street I get jittery as Strutton Ground market appears on the left (my office is just down there).
Suppressing a shudder at the sudden urge to pop in and check my emails we soldier on until we come to a large square, at the back of which glowers the bizarro façade of the most incongruous looking Christian church you're ever likely to see: the snappily named Metropolitan Cathedral Of The Precious Blood, known to most as Westminster Cathedral, London's Roman Catholic mothership.

I've walked past this startling edifice twice a day for more years than most people have been alive but until today I have never ventured inside.
Thanks to Katie's mosaic quest I am about to be surprised and delighted.

By the way, just off to the left of this photo lurk the inevitable Murphy's builders vans.
This beautiful Cathedral was built just over a hundred years ago, at the tail end of Europe's fascination with all things Byzantine.
With its huge dome - modelled on Hagia Sophia - it looks to today's eyes to be Islamic, but of course Hagia Sophia was originally a Christian church and this building (conceived at a time when Islamic culture was rightly admired rather than ignorantly feared) was intended to hark back to the glory days of Christian Constantinople, seat of the Holy Roman Empire before the revelations of the Prophet.

The mosaic above the entrance is impressive enough, but what greets us inside is astonishing.

It soon dawns on us that this church is very much a work in progress (and not just because Murphy's the builders are knocking the shit out of it).
Even though the structure is over a hundred years old, around half of the interior is still bare brickwork - a tabula rasa awaiting decoration - soot-blackened from decades of candle-flames.
Every few years, somebody bequeaths enough money to install another section of mosaic and when this work is completed - at least a hundred years hence - the effect will be magnificent beyond words.

Whatever your views on the Catholic Church, you have to admit that the sale of indulgences has resulted - if nothing else - in some fabulous artworks.
And apologies to any Catholics who may be reading this but I've spent quite enough time laying into American Christian fundamentalists (sorry, Shan), so now it's your turn.
Question: What is it with earthly redemption from sin? I've never quite been able to grasp that concept.
I can appreciate transubstantiation - not of course in any physical way but in the way a person's belief can transcend reality for them; but having your sins forgiven by a man? That's just too much to swallow.

From my readings of The Bible it seems to go like this:
You sin; you wait for God to judge you and in all likelihood you go to Hell … at least you do if you believe in all that Heaven and Hell stuff that I was brainwashed with as a kid.

But who on earth came up with the idea that you can sin and then go fess up about it to some creepy guy hiding in a box who may well be raping your children in his spare time and who'll have you believe that he'll intercede personally with God on your behalf if you recite a few pat phrases?
Sweet cheeses of Nazareth, what a fucked up world we live in.

But holy moley; what a great money-making idea the sale of indulgences was … I can picture Pope Leo X grinning to himself as he declared to a delighted aristocracy: "No matter how vicious, cruel and barbaric you are; no matter how sinful and debauched you murdering, raping and thieving utterly shitty bastards may be; if you give me lots and lots of money you can go straight to Heaven!"

So Europe's mediæval Catholic rulers taxed and robbed the people blind to pay for magnificent chapels to their own glory whilst Leo and the Borgia Popes partied until they shat gold (extracted from "Old Dive's History Of Moaning At The Godbotherers, Vol.2"), all of which kinda gave the Catholic Church a bad name.

Katie soon points out a mosaic panel pleading "Pray for the donor", and indeed most of the side chapels seem dedicated to some obscenely rich and rapacious dickhead trying to buy forgiveness for their life of sin with a token "good work" (a bit like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation … Listen up, Bill: no amount of charity work will ever atone for selling people "Windows" … Oh, the suffering you have caused).
Panel after panel of beautiful mosaic exhorts us to pray for the soul of someone loathsome.

But at least the mosaics that all these greedy and grasping sucklers at the filthy teat of Mammon have left us are pretty bloody awesome!

Hokay, I shall stop knocking the Godbotherers and the "aristocracy" (for a moment) and step back to admire the beautiful works of art that surround us.

These golden mosaics are not glass tesseræ applied over gold leaf - as at Ravenna - but little blocks of gold-leaf-encrusted stone and tile pressed into a wet base.

Katie can tell you much more about the history and the techniques involved.
She explains a lot to me, pointing out how this method gives a deliberately uneven finish that causes the tesseræ to catch the sunlight and the flickering candles in a myriad different ways and - you have to go there and see for yourself to get the true, breathtaking effect - makes the whole lot glitter fabulously.

Unfortunately I forget most of what Katie teaches me as each new chapel finds me gazing, mouth agape in wonder at the sheer beauty of the mosaics and the unbelievable amount of work involved in creating them.

As each new scene is revealed I also have considerable trouble keeping the words "Holy crap!" from flying out of my mouth in front of the smattering of worshippers bent in prayer and contemplation.

Katie points out one figure in particular (regrettably in a nook too dark to photograph), commenting on what a "hot chick" she is.
Inevitably this turns out to be Mary Magdalen and hot she undoubtedly is!
Whooee! Whoever made that panel must have got pretty steamed up while they did it!
This diaphanous vision of Art Nouveau erotic beauty is located (for the curious) around halfway along the right aisle but on a section of wall facing forward toward the altar so any horny member of the congregation would have to crane their neck all the way around to check it out and would therefore be spotted straight away; the priest's voice bellowing out "And if Mister Dive would care to tear his eyes away from the obvious delights of Ms. Magdalen for a moment I am sure we would all be most grateful for his attention."

All things considered I have to admit that this wildly overindulgent display of obscene wealth is a much prettier and longer-lasting way to waste mountains of money than bailing out a load of fatcat bankers.

And so we take our leave (via the shop, where Katie stocks up on postcards) and wander down the side of the Cathedral, past Winston Churchill's old London flat (just behind us in this photo).
During the early part of the Blitz, Winnie would sit up on the roof here in the evenings (often with various dinner guests, including Roosevelt long before the US joined the fight), reclining in his deckchair and fortified with a bottle of brandy and a fat cigar as he angrily watched the East End getting bombed to oblivion and drafted his speeches of defiance.

At the bottom of the road is my office, which we carefully skirt, only stopping for a moment to wave to Fernando the security guy before heading back toward the river and … well, you shall see tomorrow in what shall be - extremely regrettably - my last Katie and Dive post (at least for this year).

Katie And Dive Do London Pt.5

Yay! We're still at it, pounding the streets of London, mile after mile.
Never try to walk the feet off a swim team girl; it just can't be done. Katie is as fresh at the end of the second evening as she was when she stepped off the train the morning of the day before.

Having left the Miró exhibition and wandered across Piccadilly Circus we reach the bottom of Haymarket and turn aside into Waterloo Place, where Katie photographs a statue of someone (there are so many statues there that I can't remember who it was) with whom she shares a birthday.

The statue behind her celebrates a famous episode where a woman dressed in some sheets defeated some soldiers in silly hats by throwing quoits over their rifles … or something.

Anyhoo; it's mosaics we are hunting now and the next one on the list is just behind this chap standing on his column.
Oh, looky! Trafalgar Square! We can play tourists!

The mosaic we are looking for is located on the third landing inside the entrance hall of this building: The National Gallery.
It is "The Awakening of the Muses", a marble mosaic by Russian artist Boris Anrep, installed in 1933.
This mosaic has a link to where Katie is staying in her chic little Bloomsbury hotel as Anrep was chummy with the Bloomsbury Group and used his friends as models in this mosaic.
Melpomene is - oddly - Greta Garbo, but the others are Bloomsbury folk, including Virginia Woolf as Clio and Clive Bell as Bacchus.

Unfortunately, as we enter, a uniformed security flunkey is bellowing "NO PHOTOGRAPHY" at some hapless and quivering tourists so we shrug our shoulders and go look at the mosaic anyway.

Never one to willingly obey authority - especially when it's shouty - I sneak off a shot from behind a column but it is too blurry and turns out to show mostly legs.
Well; nothing ventured, nothing gained: I approach the friendliest-looking security guard, a nice middle-aged lady who shakes her head and tells me that nobody is allowed to take photographs.
Hoorah for nice middle-aged ladies, as she follows this by dropping her voice and telling me "If there's no-one looking I can't see it will do any harm … Be quick!"

So Katie and I take sneaky photos from opposite ends of the landing, the nice security lady watching out for the shouty guard. Hopefully both photos will give a decent account of the mosaic.

This is the view from the front door of The National Gallery, looking across Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall toward Parliament (you can make out Big Ben in the distance).
We'll be heading back that way in a few minutes, but first let us enjoy the square in the sunshine.

As we walk down the gallery steps Wren's church of Saint Martin greets us on the left and it appears we are not the only ones revelling in this wonderful weather.

One sign that it is indeed October is the fact that the fountains are not full of drunken tourists.

I do like this shot. The fountain looks good backlit … and Katie looks good in any light.

I still can't believe all this glorious sunshine! Woohoo!

Looks like that statue is destined to appear on Katie's blog before much longer.

Yet another gratuitously touristy photograph. Katie with Nelson's Column … and a particularly filthy London bus.

Old Horatio's been given a wash and brush-up lately; usually he's covered in pigeon poop.

Hokay … Some back-story: Earlier, Katie stops to photograph a Murphy's builders' lorry (her surname shows her part-Irish ancestry) and I regale her with the history of Irish navvies (navigators) who came over to build the canals, stayed to build the railways and who now run our building industry in a charming manner not unlike that of Tony Soprano.
So everywhere we look there are Murphy's builders.
This one is on Whitehall at the entrance to Horseguards.

And this is the entrance to Downing Street. After decades of trying to blow it up, the Irish are now renovating it.
Ah, the dividends of peace …

In tomorrow's post we shall gaze in awe at the astonishing mosaics inside St.Paul's Westminster, London's Roman Catholic Cathedral.
Normally we would not be allowed to take photographs in there but they are currently undergoing some major building works and the place is filled with scaffolding and … you guessed it … Murphy's builders.

See you there.

Katie And Dive Do London Pt.4

We left Katie at Big Ben about to cross Parliament Square where she would encounter someone wonderful …

A great man needs a great gal and this is a pretty good combination.
Abe Lincoln in the distance behind Katie's shoulder nods his approval.

Here's the great man himself at the unveiling of his statue last August and here's a link to my photo post of the event should anyone need a reminder why racism is not welcome on my planet.

So … The sun is out, the sky is blue, let's hit the parks and enjoy the fresh, crisp October air.

Regular blogpals will be all too familiar with this backdrop.
The bridge across the lake in St.James's Park takes me from my office to the heart of St.James and Piccadilly, regular lunchtime haunts so I walk across here rather a lot.

The view one side takes in the Parasite House … but who cares what's in the background when Katie's in the foreground?

… while the other side leads to Horseguards Parade, Downing Street and the Eye just across the river.

For anyone who may not know, If you amble from Parliament Square into St.James's Park you can walk the length of the park and cross at the top of The Mall into Green Park, then walk across that and enter Hyde Park … miles and miles of lush greenery with lakes and trees and flowers and beautiful places to wander and sit. And all right in the heart of the West End.
It's where I often come to de-stress.

And now Katie has come to visit and has brought us this glorious sunshine! Yay!

We take a stroll along Piccadilly to pick up lunch and stop at Fortnums to admire the hampers (Lynn, stop drooling) and to pop in and buy some of their glorious tea (Katie now has a swish Fortnums bag to match yours, Mme).

Something else regular readers will be familiar with (and indeed Mme and MB) is sushi and sashimi bought from Yoshino and eaten in the beautiful surroundings of Green Park.

Why sit in some dingy basement restaurant or in a crowded sushi bar when you can breathe the fresh air and enjoy a view like this with your lunch?
It is the perfect day for al fresco and we sigh at the beauty of it all as we demolish our yummy food in the dappled sunshine under the spectacular plane trees of Green Park.

Then we head back across the grass toward The Ritz and Piccadilly, refreshed, replete and now hungry for more culture!

Halfway along Piccadilly is the arched entrance to the courtyard that conceals the Royal Academy.
And tucked away on the top floor (again, regrettably with no photography allowed) is the delightfully light-hearted and very French exhibition we are heading for.

In what must have been a lifetime of pure pleasure, Parisian art dealer M. Aimé Maeght befriended the greatest artists of his generation and built up the marvellous collection housed in the Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght in Saint Paul, some of the gems from which we are about to enjoy ourselves.

Greeting us as we enter is a wall-sized Matisse, followed by a roomful of beautiful Bonnards but the main exhibition concentrates on Joan Miró's bright and gloriously exuberant paintings, contrasted with George Braque's dark late cubism, while filling the gallery space between the walls (and over our heads) are slender and elegant Giacometti figures and the wild and wonderful mobiles and sculptures of Alexander Calder.

The overriding sensation in these wonderful rooms is of pure joy and a playfulness that would never be guessed at from simply looking at pictures of these works in art history books.

A lot of the exhibits are from the personal collection of the Maeght family and include outrageously light-hearted paintings and sculptures I have never seen in any book and the sheer fun of it all is almost shocking!

In amongst the displays are videos of the family's home movies including film of the artists working and chatting and eating and a lovely little vignette of Mme. Maeght and Alberto Giacometti dancing around the studio to an old gramophone.
Marvellous!

Neither of us have ever seen a Calder painting before - only being familiar with his giant mobiles - but here are a veritable feast of them and they are real eye-openers; together with tiny mobiles, sculptures and light-hearted sketches.

There is a strangely disturbing book by Braque featuring on its cover what appears to be a false breast and - lo and behold - on reading the accompanying notes we discover that Braque purchased a box of seventy of these breasts from the United States military where they had been used (get this) to boost soldiers' morale during wartime.
Next time you meet a WWII Veteran, ask 'em about the boobs.
The world can be a wonderful place if you peer into the odder nooks and corners.

Close to my own heart, Aimé Maeght published a myriad of limited edition small press books featuring works by his favourite poets and artists, carefully chosen and beautifully executed. Many examples are on display here and I'm afraid my rare book lust gets the better of me and I go into hyperactive two-year-old mode.

We leave the exhibition with faces wreathed in smiles. This really is a feel-good show and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to see a side of modern art that is often hidden (as well as a stunning display of pieces from post-war Europe's very best artists).

And so, with a song in our hearts and a spring in our step, Katie and Dive head off down Haymarket, turning left at the bottom to find … well, we shall discover that tomorrow!

On the way, Katie goes "Oooh!" and dashes into a shop, emerging with something that is not apparently available in the States; a chunky Yorkie Bar with "It's Not For Girls" written on the side.
Which she promptly demolishes beside what has to be the pinkest sari I've seen in many a moon.

Check back tomorrow, Katie fans. We crammed so much into two days that I still have enough photos for three more posts!