Monday, November 7, 2011 at 8:08PM I dock in Bilbao in a little over 5 hours from now. I'll spend two nights there before travelling across the country on a train to get to Morocco.
Why am I going to Bilbao? Because I love this song.
Lowest of the Low, "Letter from Bilbao," Shakespeare My Butt, 1991.
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 7:35PM A few days ago, on my last day in London, I spent three hours at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Three hours despite being ruthless with what I saw there.
My cousin Becky was disappointed I didn't see there collection of wedding dresses. She also thought I was cracked for racing through the jewellery collection on the way to the photographic exhibition.
Here are some of the things that stuck out for me:
The museum, especially their design collection, was a breath of fresh air after so much of the old stuff seen earlier on the trip.
In the design collection they have a Handspring Visor. An iMac. A Sony Vaio which, only 10 years old, looks ancient.
I had a Handspring Visor - the follow-up to the Palm Pilot.
They mention the iMac as being designed by Jonathan Ive. You hear his name a lot over here. This must be because he is from here.
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Seeing David Bowe's "Aladdin Sane" album cover and one of Elton John's outfits it seems that they might be more properly considered Lady Gaga's main influences more so than Madonna
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In the Gold exhibit there is a portrait of Charles I on bone china. Portraits of him are everywhere in this country, which I find interesting because it was he that was beheaded at the start of Cromwell's interregnum.
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Theatre and Performance exhibit
On Creating
"The process of creation differs from artist to artist but always springs from the premise that something must, could or should be created."
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Post-Modern Exhibit
"…the working parts of electronic devices were so small that they did not dictate anything about form: 'if mechanical design is about function, then electronic design will be about decoration.'"
-George Sowden
This was echoed by Ives in the documentary Objectified where he pointed to an iPhone and talked about how to this point in time, the purpose of an object was obvious from its design. A chair looked like a chair. A toaster looked like a toaster. But now, with the iPhone, it's not possible to discern the objects utility from its shape.
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They had a copy of the cover the May 1986 issue of the New Socialist Magazine. Despite being 25 years old the front cover stories wouldn't be out of place today:
"Style Wars"
"israel's Unholy Alliance"
"Feminism and class politics"
"Fall-Out Over Libya"
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"As the 'designer decade' wore on and the world economy boomed, many post-modernists participated enthusiastically in a culture obsessed with wealth and status. Ultimately, this was the undoing of the movement. Postmodernism collapsed under the weight of its own success."
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Magnificent that the PoMo exhibit ends by spilling you into its own specialized gift shop.
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 7:09PM As I sit here on the Cap Finestere in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, it dawns on me that from now on, with every step I take, I will be travelling further away from home than I have ever been.
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 8:57PM Following my St. Paul's experience, I decided on Thursday, if unconsciously, to keep up my tour of living buildings in lieu of museums.
And with that I passed on the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms and walked to Parliament Square not expecting that I'd be allowed into the Palace of Westminster.
But allowed I was, past machine-gun carrying policemen, through a metal detector and x-ray machine for my bags, and into Westminster Hall. Through the hall, around a corner, a seat on some benches and eventually in the House of Commons itself to watch a debate on the Silk Commission and the devolution of powers to Wales.
A quiet, friendly debate on a grey afternoon that would eventually give way to rain, it seemed that it might be a harbinger of great changes on the horizon for the United Kingdom. The Conservative member for Monmouth spoke of the possibility of, if there shall be devolved assemblies for Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, then, perhaps, there should be one for England. Questions arose on whether the assemblies for Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland were granted to quell nationalist sentiment or whether it was due to demands to enhance democracy. Questions too, whether the United Kingdom should seek to reform itself into a federation with members of equal status.
"I think there is a strong case for looking at some form of English Parliament or some means to prevent Welsh and Scottish MPs from voting on matters that affect only England. I repeat that I have already made that viewpoint public. I do not pretend to know the exact answer, but I am in favour of something along those lines. It might well be that at that point, we would have to consider increasing the powers of the Welsh Assembly in line with those of the other parts of the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman will know, however, that that is something that happens in many countries across the world—in Canada, Germany and countries with a Commonwealth tradition such as Australia, for example. If that is thought through properly, it can work. My current difficulty is with the asymmetric nature of our arrangements. Giving further powers to Wales in this way—through the Silk commission if that is what it decides—is going to make them even more asymmetric."
Then it was on to the House of Lords.
Where the Commons is plain and green and extremely well-protected, including a wall of glass between the public gallery and the floor of the Commons, the House of Lords is red and ornate and the Strangers' Gallery is open to the air above the Lords.
The Lords held two surprises. The first was that they were debating the Eurozone crisis. I had not expected to find this appointed, upper body, debating a matter of such immediate concern.
The second related to who took part in the debate. The seating plan for the Lords shows that the first two benches immediately to the right of the Lord Speaker are reserved for Bishops. I assumed that the Bishops attendance in the Lords was mostly ceremonial and that they would only attend for the State Opening of Parliament, much like how the Supreme Court Justices attend the Throne Speech in the Senate in Canada. And yet, as I walked into the Strangers' Gallery, there was a bishop, the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, in his vestments, sitting on the Bishops' Bench. What's more, he took part in the debate.
"Our public and political debate is understandably fixed on the latest saga in the eurozone. However, are we conveniently overlooking the pressing question of where growth will come from? This is not just a eurozone problem but one for the whole of Europe. A stable euro requires more balanced trade and growth among its members. The prevailing economic orthodoxy holds that tough austerity and structural reform will ultimately lead to growth. The last two years may suggest that this orthodoxy is wanting.
"Economists will of course point out examples of fiscal austerity preceding economic growth but they all include currency devaluation and/or big cuts in interest rates. Neither option is open to the eurozone economies. It is hardly surprising therefore that household and business confidence is rapidly crumbling across the currency union, depressing economic activity across Europe as a whole. On current trends a series of sovereign and banking defaults looks unavoidable.
"A crisis that started on Europe's periphery has been allowed to grow into a threat to the core of the eurozone and the future of the European project itself. Measures taken across Europe appear to invite economic stagnation and political dislocation, the effects of which can be seen on even the marbled steps of St Paul's."
The Palace of Westminster is grand and historic. But it, like St. Paul's, is also alive even though it's easy to forget the view from outside and the pictures from inside that appear on the evening news not easily connected.
My tour of living buildings will continue on Friday with a visit to the Royal Albert Music Hall for a concert before I collapse into my bunk on the Cap Finestere on Sunday for a two-day cruise to Spain and a complete absence of history and significance.
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 7:09PM I've been in a lot of churches these last two weeks. More churches than I've been in the last two years and, probably, in the last ten years.
Par for the course, I guess, when on a trip like this. Churches seem to be better maintained, better cared for, than most other types of buildings.
Perhaps it's because more love and care goes into these buildings than others.
Perhaps that's because these tributes to God, to kings, to saints, and to saints who were kings and queens, are built to stand until the ends of time.
There was a church I saw from the window of my train to Stirling. It stands on the cliffs on the northeast coast of England somewhere near Berwick-upon-Tweed where the waves batter the earth, making Santa Cruz seem like a children's playground.
The church is but a shell of itself. The roof is gone, as are most of the walls, the pillars and stone beams all that remains of this church, standing alone, facing the sea that beats its cliff; time the only thing standing between now and the day it tumbles into the water below.
Seeing these churches, St. Mary's Chapel at Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles Cathedral a little way down the Royal Mile, St. David's in Glasgow, the mammoth cathedral (styled a chapel) started by Henry VI and finished by Henry VIII at King's College and St. Bene't's in Cambridge - seeing them as a sightseer, paying the entrance fee, gazing at the ceilings, looking at the paintings, the statues to dead saints, it's easy to forget that these houses of God were, at one time, filled with the hopes and prayers of worshipers.
I never imagined, when I woke yesterday morning, that I would be going to church.
My plan for the day was to go to the Tower of London where I hoped to recapture some of the thrill I'd felt on my first visit there as a 12-year old. I saw the foot guards, the place where Anne Boleyn was executed, the crowns of several kings and queen's, the ravens, that gigantic diamond the Queen Mother had in her crown.
It was fun. It was entertaining but, I confess, after two weeks here, I'm growing tired of museums. I'm especially disinterested in replicas of the way things might have been. But, I tell myself, as I stare at relics of the past, this trip is about the present. It's about where I am right now and I'll do myself no favours by rushing ahead.
So I press on, going to the places and the sights I listed out for myself that I wanted to see. And that meant walking from the Tower to St. Paul's Cathedral along Great Tower Street, past lanes Mincing and Seething, onto Eastcheap, then Cannon Street, eventually to St. Paul's Churchyard.
Up the steps, past the Occupy London protest, in the door, pulling out my wallet only, instead of being asked for the entrance fee I was asked if I would be attending the full service, was handed an Order of Mass, and was ushered to a seat in front of the altar.
Yesterday was All Soul's Day. I arrived at one of the greatest churches in the world expecting a museum. I found a house of worship.
Sung Requiem Eucharist
The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed
Messe de Requiem - Duruflé
with the City of London Sinfonia
A danger on this trip, this round-the-world trip, is that it will be too easy to overuse the phrase "once in a lifetime." "Once in a lifetime" to justify an unnecessary expense. "Once in a lifetime" to confer greater significance on an pedestrian experience. And yet, to be in this grand building, this architectural phenomenon, as it is being used for the purpose for which it was built. To hear the organ, the choir, the orchestra, the prayers of the faithful. To offer the sign of peace to the people around me and to feel the temperature in the building plummet as the worshipers left, I can think of no better experience to which this phrase should be applied.
