The great man of the behind

Sometimes we overlook what flows beneath our feet. Often because it smells. However, this monument on London's Embankment is a reminder of one of the men who saved the city from its own by-product.


Sir Joseph Bazalgette was one of the greatest Victorian civil engineers, an era hardly short of engineering giants. He created a sewer network for central London, which helped relieve the city from the otherwise inevitable rise of cholera epidemics, and began the clean-up of the River Thames, which had reached a nadir with The Great Stink of 1858. Today there are men fishing from this embankment, so either it's worked, or optimism has some peculiar outlets in old London town...

James

Tutor needs a hand

Don't complain if you car doesn't start, and you need a push. The following is the standard method of starting the Avro Tutor's Armstrong Siddley Lynx engine. What's not evident is the pilot has to wind like crazy on the spark-magneto at the same time.


What a whole field of these needing starting for a days training in the 1930s RAF would have been like seems beyond belief.


But eventually it worked, and despite the rain, we were treated to another fine Shuttleworth display.


The aircraft is the sole survivor of the type in the world; likewise it's Lynx engine is the only working active example in the world as well, and provides numerous challenges for the engineers.


The lovely scheme was recently applied after the machine was refurbished and recovered a couple of years ago. The beautiful 'sunburst' scheme is the colours of the RAF's Central Flying School Aerobatic team - forerunners of the modern RAF Red Arrows.

James

'Railway' time

We are reliably informed that the coming of the railways caused clocks in the UK to come onto one, accurate and consistent time across the whole of the vast country (the Canadians and Australians can stop laughing at the back about 'vast' please) and thus the iron horse, as well as annoying Hardy and JMW Turner, brought a unity to Britain.

The clocks now seem to be going backwards...


Caught today as I was trying to return from Wolverhampton to London, this intriguingly chronologically impossible train arrived 'on time' ten minutes after it was originally due. Or did it? Whatever the existential philosophical aspects of the case, I'll never know if the connection I tried to meet in Birmingham New Street Station made a sound or not as it left/fell in the forest - as I missed it.

More normal entries will appear when we get a gap between gathering material and sleeping.

James

Trafalgar Square goes Canuck

Indeed it does. And not what we expected this morning, either! Sponsored by (come to...) Alberta, London had a fine show of Canadian pride. We skipped the Moosehead and a few other things, but I caught the hockey...

...and there were some other unusual sights to see.


Um.



After scouring Canada for a real-genuine-just-like-the-adverts Mountie, and failing (I'm sorry, traffic cops don't cut it - the advertising has the red jacket and funny hat, so that's what they should wear...) we finally lucked out in the capital of cops in funny hats - London:

She very kindly posed with me just to show she was real. A quick chat established that not only was she a proper, genuine Mountie, but that her normal 'beat' is Sackville, but she's currently deployed to Shediac, NB (Small world, eh?). She was asked if she'd like to do a couple of days on duty in London. What would you say?

Incidentally, full dress uniform was probably a bit much as it peaked at 27 degrees today.


'Québec - it's a laff.' I think they need to work on that, along with remembering whatever it is they aren't forgetting...

And a very happy Canadian art historian.


I realise we've now celebrated Canada day on three continents - London (Europe) Melbourne (Australia) and Ottawa - Canada, of course. Must be some kind of record.

James (The Mountie's caught man.)

Heaven is a hilltop

Twinkly toes in sandals, well up on WhiteHorse Hill.

Oxford delights, but its green surroundings can be sublime. Jacqui, Thomas, James and I went rambling in the big pink camper van, to the ancient monument of White Horse Hill.


There was a baguette for lunch, almost as tall as Thomas himself!

But that's a young man with his eyes set on far horizons....


Luckily, there's nothing better than running through the grass in a big old field.



.... where not everything is as it seems!

There's a huge white horse cut into the hillside above us.


And chalky white lumps that turn out to be....


Curious sheep!

Thank you, Jacqui, for a fabulous day in the pink-and-green sunshine.

Bev

The eleven-hour lunch date

What a shock and a quiet delight to be back in Oxford, visiting some old haunts. We arrived late on Friday night, and over two and a half packed days, we saw many sites of significance.


Such as the cafe that hosted the famous eleven-hour lunch date. Which was when the penny dropped that this rather nice new friendship between Bev and James was likely to become something else, all those years ago (nine, to be precise). A month later, we were engaged.

So we sat at the same table again and smiled quietly. Thank you, James, for nine years of love and partnership, books, talking, friends, travel and interesting things.

Bev

Traveller's Mysteries: No.472b in an occasional series

Hotel bathrooms.


Why is it that putting in a shelf for washbags is regarded as a frivolous extra, given that just about every traveller is going to need one?