Saturday 31 July 2010

(31 July 2010) Battersea, Chelsea, Victoria, Pimlico

Latest secret walk:

31 July 2010 walk

Battersea Square
Blessed with unexpectedly kind weather, we started off with breakfast in Battersea Square; reminiscent of local squares in small Greek towns.

Nearest attraction is St. Mary's Church. Completely unknown to most Londoners, St. Mary's Churchbut Turner used to walk there from his Cheyne Walk home and draw sketches of the Thames from the church's vestry window. The tall chair he used to sit on is still there in the church. Also, William Blake was married there. A bit more trivial knowledge: burried in its crypt is Benedict Arnold, the American General who defected to the British during the American Revolutionary War. While in command of the fort at West Point, New York, he plotted to surrender it to the British. Unsuccessfully. I imagine that the British consider him a hero and the Americans a traitor, but I don't really know.

Next, we follow Turner back home from St. Mary's over the bridge to Cheyne Walk.
Battersea Bridge

Cheyne Walk
Thomas More's statueTurner used to live in 118-119. Next to him, Pankhurst in 120. Brunel in 98, Jagger in 48, Maxwell in 41, Sloane in 19-26, Rosetti in 16, David LLoyd George in 10, George Eliott in 4 and Keith Richards in 3. George Best and Laurence Olivier were also somewhere there. Before these, Chelsea was a rather unpopular place, but long before them it was the residence of Sir Thomas More and later one of King Henry VIII's. Henry is said to have married his third wife Jane Seymour in Chelsea Old Church, soon after the execution of Anne Boleyn. The south chapel was built by Sir Thomas More in 1528 for his own private worship. His latin inscription asks that he be buried next to his wife. More is one of my favourite historical figures. I highly recommend the "A Man for All Seasons" (1966, 8.1/10 on IMDB) if you want to learn More about him without opening a book. It's a lesson in dignity.

National Army Museum
National Army Museum - Siege of Boulogne
One of my favourite museums in London. It's ironic how civilised a museum about war can be. It has to do with the fact that it's in the heart of Chelsea and that unlike the Imperial War Museum no tourist knows about it.

Royal Hospital Chelsea
Probably the most impressive of all retirement homes, it's the home of about 310 pensioners, Royal Hospital Chelseaall war veterans. It carries the name Hospital in its original meaning (a place where hospitality is provided). I'm not sure what's more impressive; the history of the Royal Hospital, the personal stories of its occupants or the complex of buildings itself. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, commissioned by King Charles II. My favourite bit from the Royal Hospital is the inscription on the statue that welcomes the visitors: "If I forget thee do not forget me". Last time we were there, one of the pensioners told us that the table in the dining hall is where they placed Wellington's body for seven days when he died. The specific pensioner was a world war 2 veteran. His regiment fought in several places, but he was wounded just before it was transfered to Greece.

Dining Hall Royal Hospital Chelsea Royal Hospital Chelsea Royal Hospital Chelsea

Saatchi Gallery

What can I say!!

Saatchi Gallery Saatchi Gallery

Westminster Cathedral

Westminster CathedralDespite its location in one of the busiest areas of London, its impressive size and striking Eastern Orthodox architecture, Westminster Cathedral is unknown to tourists and many Londoners. Ignore the misleading architectural style. It's a Catholic church; in fact it's the mother church of the Roman Catholic community in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Church and Cathedral of the Archbishop of Westminster.

Westminster Cathedral

On the way to the last leg of the walk, past the cricket pavilion of Vincent Square and towards Pimlico and Vauxhall Bridge. A very quiet part of the city. Completely different to nearby Victoria.

Cricket near Westminster

Vauxhall Bridge

It's remarkable how many are not aware of what in my opinion is the most majestic building in London.

MI6 building

Less remarkable is that very few are aware of the miniature St. Paul's on the side of Vauxhall Bridge. You can claim that it's the smallest Cathedral in London :P. Oh well...

Miniature St Paul's Duck Boat

Tate Britain
Harrier in Tate Britain
That's effectively the National Gallery of British Art (Tate was the founder). It includes several of Turner's works, but we were too tired for one more museum and we left it for another day. It's not limited to paintings. Especially the upside-down Harrier was perfect for Pisa-like photos.

Last, we took the boat that connects Tate Britain with Tate Modern for a gentle walk in South Bank.

View from inside Thames Clipper

South Bank
One of the favourite walking areas of Londoners, but that's for another day. For the time being some photos only:

view from South Bank pier South Bank Southbank books

Sunday 11 July 2010

(10 - 11 July 2010) WSW England

Wonderful weekend. This time, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. In short: aircraft, codebreaking, shopping, idyllic villages, historic towns and a medieval battle.

10-11 July 2010 trip

RAF Museum, London
Just a short stroll inside one of the museum's halls. An opportunity to calibrate the cameras and take a breath before heading north towards Milton Keynes.
Sopwith Camel Rolls Royce Merlin III P-40 Me 262 He 162 Hawker Hart FritzX BF 109

Bletchley Park
Golden Goose "The Geese that laid the golden eggs but never cackled". That's how Churchill described Bletchley Park and its codebreakers, the best-kept wartime secret that was revealed in 1974 in a book called "The Ultra Secret". Its author had worked in Bletchley Park during World War II and wrote the book based on memory.

It is often said that without the cracking of the codes used by the Axis forces, the war would have lasted an estimated two more years, which would mean another 20 million lives lost. I don't know if I'd agree or not, mainly because I don't know whether the Allies would have won all those critical late-war battles without the intelligence superiority that Bletchley Park offered. Perhaps the massive US war production machine, the Soviet armies and a hypothetical atomic bomb on Germany instead of Japan would have been enough. In any case, the codebreakers in Bletchley Park provided the Allies with the most important of all weapons in the history of warfare: the ability to read the enemy's plans.

Fairey Fulmar escorting the British and Australian ships (Battle of Cape Matapan)Take an example from the 1941 Battle of Cape Matapan. As British ships were escorting troop convoys to Greece, intelligence was received reporting the sailing of a mighty Italian battle fleet (one battleship, six heavy and two light cruisers plus destroyers) to attack the convoys. The British gathered a large fleet, ambushed and destroyed the Italian fleet. This was made possible by the decryption of intercepted signals in Bletchley Park, but it was concealed from the enemy by ensuring there was a plausible reason for the Allies to have detected the Italian fleet. In this case, the British sent a carefully directed reconnaissance plane, so that the Italians would think that it was the plane that spotted them.

Apart from a vital World War 2 weapon, and probably equally significantly, Bletchley Park was the birthplace of the computer. Colossus, the world's first programmable, digital, electronic computer was invented and built at Bletchley Park to speed up the reading of encrypted German messages.

Alan TuringA key figure in Bletchley Park was Alan Turing, possibly the most important figure in the history of Computer Science. Turing read Mathematics in Cambridge, where his monumental work started with a dissertation on the central limit theorem. A bit later he published his paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem", which eventually led to the Turing Machine. He obtained a PhD from Princeton in 1938 and then returned to Cambridge. Together with several other brilliant minds from Cambridge and other universities, he was recruited to work in Hut 8 of Bletchley Park when the war started. In his own words, Turing decided to tackle the particularly difficult problem of cracking the German naval Enigma machine "because no one else was doing anything about it and I could have it to myself". The Enigma system was cracked and the Allies gained an immense intelligence advantage over the Axis.

In 1945, Turing was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his wartime services, but his work had to remain secret for many years, as Bletchley Park was a state secret. Turing was homosexual and when the authorities found out about it in 1952, he was charged with Gross Indecency and was chemically castrated. Due to his conviction he lost his security clearance and could not any more work for the government. Two years later, he committed suicide by eating an apple that contained a cyanide capsule, recreating his favourite scene from "Snow White".

Today, the Turing award is the most prestigious award that a computer scientist can receive. It is the Computer Science equivalent of the Nobel prize.

Typex Turing Bombe Machine Enigma Machine Bletchley Park Mansion Bletchley Park Mansion Bletchley Park Mansion Bletchley Park side entrance
In order to survive financially, Bletchley Park offers its space for corporate meetings, weddings and other events, and even hosts other private museums. As a result, it has become a rather curious museum mixing codebreaking exhibits with dollhouses, model ships, stamps etc.

Doll houses and other toys Naval models Pegagus Bridge diorama A glimpse of WW2 family life

You need to take the guided tour to get a better idea of what is what, but even the tour is quite eccentric. In any case, it was nice walking inside the buildings where Turing and his colleagues were working.

After heavy education, a light shopping break had to follow.

Bicester VillageBicester Village Outlet Centre
That's a complex of over 120 designer stores, which was built to look like a traditional English village. One can easily find 80% off designer clothes bargains there. If I were the shopping kind, I'd probably love it, but I'm not. Not that it's bad. It's certainly better than your usual city centre shopping mall. Not a single generalist bookshop though! Even Westfield has a Foyles.

On the way to the Cotswolds
Next, one of the most beautiful places in Europe; the Cotswolds. Oxfordshire is beautiful, but nothing compares to the Cotswolds. You realise this as soon as you get out of the A40 and start heading north towards the villages under the cover of the trees. Bliss.

Bourton-on-the-Water
Bourton-on-the-Water"Venice of the Cotswolds", presumably because of the stream and the footbridges. I see no point in this nickname, as Bourton-on-the-Water is so overwhelmingly picturesque that it doesn't need tourists lured with Vegas-like tricks. The village looks tiny, but it has 4,000 inhabitants. In fact, technically it should be considered a town.
Bourton-on-the-Water Bourton-on-the-Water Bourton-on-the-Water
Bourton-on-the-Water model villageWe arrived quite late and didn't have the chance to visit the museums and other attractions (Birdland, motoring museum, Model Railway, Dragonfly Maze, roman road, etc.). I need to go again soon, especially for the 1:9 model of the village. It was built by local craftsmen in the 1930s and since it is so large, it includes itself (model within a model :o). It's not like the Cotswolds look bad in the winter ;).
Bourton on the water - Winter

Gloucester
The plan was to stay in Tewkesbury, but since we couldn't find rooms there, we went for Gloucester. Not that it's a boring town. Quite the opposite. It looks quite nice, with its fair share of medieval buildings, pedestrian roads and open-air fares and festivals, but at the time we had the chance to explore it (Sunday early morning) there was nobody in the streets. People started popping out of their houses around 10:30. Tea rooms would open at 11:00, but we had to go.

Gloucester Cathedral Gloucester Watchmaker Gloucester Historic Docks

Final stop, Tewkesbury, or Tjuksbree as the locals pronounce it.

Tewkesbury
The town is supposed to have been founded by a hermit in the 7th century. Spying on the enemyToday it is remembered mainly for the 1471 battle at the "Bloody Meadow", where Edward IV's Yorkist forces defeated the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses. It all started because Henry VI was considered insane and the country lacked a strong leader. Edward of York, the most able leader left, was declared King in 1461. He locked Henry in the tower of London and his wife Margaret of Anjou fled to France with their son, also called Edward. When the young Edward reached 18, Margaret decided to return to England and re-claim the throne for him. She landed at Weymouth on April 14, 1471, and set off for Wales, where her ally, Jasper Tudor, awaited with re-enforcements. On the way to Wales, she met the enemy army just outside Tewkesbury.

Tewkesbury Battle

Medieval ArcherThe reenactment of the Battle of Tewkesbury is the world's largest of its kind. It attracts thousands of re-enactors and visitors. While the main attraction is the actual battle, this is only between 3 and 4 pm. Until then, you have plenty to do (and buy) in the medieval camps next to the battlefield. Only slightly disappointing bit was the archery competition. Not as interesting as we were hoping for. We didn't even find out who won. No commentating and very few of the re-enactors/competitors were interested in providing a show for the spectators.




The battle itself, however, was like a football match. A bit boring at times but would get quite exciting when a side would charge or when a duel between champions would take place. Especially the finale with the duel between the two Edwards was captivating.







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