London Open Days

We decided to visit the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department of Culture Media and Sport, Royal Society of Arts and the Wellington in this order on the Sunday. We found that the first two were easily the best, doubtless because they were Government funded.

The bit of the FCO we saw was originally part of the old India Office and was full of boastful statues and paintings of the time when we ruled India. No doubt we had rich plunder from there. The rooms were beautifully decorated despite the fact that they had fallen into decay during the early twentieth century. One of the main rooms had been boarded over and used as a furniture store. This was because of the excessive cots of upkeep. The boarding was removed in the 1990s and when the quality of the underlying decoration was recognised a decision was taken to renovate it. This was at the trifling cost of £100 million. The results are astonishing as the photos on the link hopefully show. ( http://www.flickr.com/brainwave/ )

The DCMS is a small Department and occupies a building near to Trafalgar Square. Their office was renovated for them before they occupied it. We were only shown round the Ministers' roomswhichh were furnished with top quality furniture and pictures from the Governments art collection. As you can imagine the DCMS has to showcase the best of British art and craft, but for cost reasons this has to be the work of young artists who are expected to be the best. Nevertheless the collectors have missed the works of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, to name but two. And no photography was allowed.

We liked the office of David Lammy best: he is black and chose the works of Black British artists with the effect that there are as many models as pictures in his office. Richard Caborn is the Minister of Sport and he had numerous sporting pictures including a few based on the London Olympic bid.

One slightly jarring note was that Ministers all had PCs but none of their desks had been designed to conceal the wiring, so that these elegant pieces of furniture in made of rare woods each had a messy trail of wires dangling down their visible backs.

The photo of the statue is of the new one in Trafalgar Square portraying Alison Lapper, an artist who is a thalidomide victim, when she was pregnant. We thought it was fine despite the controversy over it's siting.

The Name Game

There was a recent court case reported in which four members of a family by the name of - Fury - were accused of murdering a man by kicking and stamping him at the wedding of their relative Billy (not the 60s' singer). The victim had the temerity to ask one of the female Furys for a dance. A year afterwards and Billy is suing his wife for divorce.

In the following week's newspaper a case was reported of three girls aged 12, 14 and 15 who were banned from being at large in their housing state beyond something like 9 pm because of their habit of shouting, throwing eggs, etc in the early hours of the morning. Their surname - Spittle!

This week the courts were quiet.

A weekend in the Cotswolds

Rolling chalk hills, picturesque villages with delightful stone buildings often erected during the wool industry boom of the 16th and 17th centuries. Very good walking and sightseeing country. So lots of wealthy people there living in large houses and large grounds, miles from any services other than the local pub. The honeypot towns like Bourton on the Water (top left) are full of tourists on a fine weekend.

The area appeals most to those without accompanying children and so is less busy in the school holidays than in, say, September.





The picture at the bottom features one of our intrepid travellers - bet the bull was scared.