Ripped from the Headlines

On the very day the headline in the London Times is the upcoming demise of Greenwich Mean Time, we were - you guessed it - in Greenwich!  Afer a day here, we are travelling the Underground like natives.  It really has to be the best marked and most effecient underground in the world.  We both love it, and it has the additional benefit of being great exercise, with all the up and down stairs and rushing about!

We took one of the London Walking Tours to Greenwich.  These are an old favorite of mine - they have been doing walking tours in London for 50 years, and are always informative and fun. The guides seem  to all take pride in finding obscure historical facts about their subjects and delight in telling new people about them.  There are tours for all parts of the city and all interests; in the past, I have been known to do two a day.  (No booking in advance, always meeting at an Underground station, usually led by out of work actors, great fun.)

Yesterday was no exception.  We had the wonderful boat trip up the Thames to Greenwich, with running commentary - passing pubs frequented by Samuel Pepys, the place where Dickens lived and wrote Great Expectations, the kind of thing one can only get in London -  and then a tour of the town of Greenwich and the sites.  (One of the aforementioned factoids:  the expression "keep your eye on the ball" is said to come from maritime captains telling their mates to keep their eye on the ball at the top of the Royal Observatory in order to set their timepieces!)  After the tour, we wandered around Greenich on our own for a while,seeing the Marine Museum and the Royal Observatory (seeing the infamous clocks referred to in the book Longitude, which Hank particularly enjoyed) then taking the boat back.    Pictures may or may not follow; my camera ran out of  battery, so I could not take any pictures.  There was a lady from Vancouver (Kerrisdale, no less!) on the tour with us, who said she would email me her photos, so stay tuned. 

Although one of the reasons for stopping in London (aside from  getting rid of jet lag) was the theater, we are finding the theater pickings rather slim  this year.  Instead, last night, we went to the movies, to see the new John LeCarre remake, of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, with Colin Firth and John Hurd.  It is not due to be shown in the US (and Canada, I assume) until December, so we feel that it was somewhat of a coup.  A well made movie, although I must confess that both of us felt that 90% of it went over our heads.  By the way, if it is any consolation to any of you, they have more ads (albeit racier and more artistic) in the movies than we do at home.

English breakfast having been consumed (Hank, eating in the morining, imagine!), we are the way to Hampton court today.  It seems that the weather might have broken - perhaps 20 degrees cooler than it was yesterday,  More anon.