Punting on the River Cam, Cambridge

The hope had been to go punting on the River Cam which runs through Cambridge, but the weather had been so cold, grey, and windy lately that we weren't sure.  But it turned into a spectacular day that was not only pleasant to walk around in  but it my camera trigger finger go crazy.  So BG, who was a Cambridge student forty years ago, took us punting. 

He managed to stay on the punt the whole way, even when the pole got stuck in the mud.  More impressive is that he got us where he wanted us - through bridges, past other punts, along the shore - without crashing into anything.  This was all done by pushing off with the pole and occasionally using it as a rudder.

He told us where we were all along, but I wasn't taking notes.

The Anchor was near where we returned the punt and seemed like a good lunch spot.

Because BG knew how to punt, we did the self-hire.  And because he was a Cambridge grad he got a discount on top of that. 

And finally we have lunch at the Anchor, the pub we had just passed.  BG did let us know that the weather we had was quite out of the ordinary and that most punting was done in a drizzle. 

Cambridge 1 - King's College Chapel

Doug had arranged for us to meet with a Cambridge grad friend - BG - at Cambridge Thursday. An unexpected guest was the sun which warmed things up considerably and made for much nicer photo opportunities. I'll start with King's College, particularly the chapel.

But first, BG pointed out Senate House Leap - students jumping from the corner of one of these buildings to the other, which is described in detail at insectnation (which has pictures):

"There is, of course, one easy way up the Senate House. This is to climb up the South face of Caius, and then get on to the building by way of the Senate House Leap. This method has been well known for a long time, and the only argument concerning it that I know of has been over the distance to be jumped.
One night we decided to go up and measure it, and at the same time to get some photographs. Most people put the distance between Caius and the Senate House at 7-8 feet, but it proved to be only 6 feet at the narrowest part. It was very wet and slippery that night so we decided that a rope would be necessary protection, especially with flash guns going off. Brian jumped across first and belayed everyone else from the Senate House. This is a necessary precaution, since if an accident occurred the climber would dangle under the overhang of the Senate House, instead of smashing into the face of Caius, probably through a window. We have all done the leap several times without a rope, the only difficulty being summoning up enough courage on the first attempt. The reverse jump onto Caius is equally easy."

Shortly we were at the entrance to the King's College Chapel. 

King's College website says: 

King's College Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, and is a splendid example of late Gothic (Perpendicular) architecture. It was started in 1446 by Henry VI (1421-71) and took over a century to build. It has the largest fan vault ceiling in the world and some of the finest medieval stained glass.

(This picture does connect roughly with the one above.) I mentioned in the post on Arlington National Cemetery how the whole setting impacts one's unconscious (if not conscious) attitude toward the military and soldiers and war.  Clearly, this is an extreme example of how architectural space does the same.  It is hard to be in this building without feeling awe and one's own insignificance. 

Imagine, when they started building this chapel, the Western World hadn't heard the name Columbus nor did it know about the Americas.  And this also supports my recent comment about how people today really should have much more respect for the abilities of people in the past.  

 The chapel from the River Cam.

King's College Chapel and moorhen. 

British Elections High Voter Turnout

[Update: 11:23pm - BBC is reporting that in a number of polling places people were turned away when the polls closed at 10pm and they weren't allowed to vote. But it seems they were not prepared for such a possibility and different polling places treated such voters differently. I also learned today that EU members living in UK can vote in local elections, but not the national elections.]

[Update 10:12 pm: Here's the television's exit poll report.  307 for the Conservatives, but they need 326 seats to have a majority.  255 is for Labour.  59 is Lib Dems.  29 Others.  Here's a link to the BBC coverage.]

We were in Cambridge today and the sun was glorious and I'll post some pictures soon.  But it's election day in UK and here are some photos of voting.  Above was from the Park and Ride bus leaving Cambridge to the car park where Doug's car was.

And here's Doug's polling place in Brentwood. 

These were the officials at the polling place in Brentwood.  They allowed me to take pictures, but they did ask what I was going to do with them.  When I said I had a blog in Alaska, they had no problem.

Here are the voting booths.

These are the candidates for Member of Parliament (MP) from this district.  As I said in the previous post, Pickles is the Conservative Party Chair and current MP from Brentwood. 

These are the candidates for local council.

These folks were checking people's polling numbers on their voting cards as they came in or left.  They are actually party members who are checking on who votes so they can then go out and encourage their supporters who haven't voted to go out and vote.  The woman has on a blue ribbon which indicates the Conservative Party.  The man had a yellow ribbon in his pocket and represents the Liberal Democratic Party.  I asked about the Labour Party rep and she said she'd done this four times now and there never was a Labour Party rep.  They said that voting was quite high.  That was a couple of hours ago, about 6:30pm local time.

It sounds like a lot of people hadn't made up their minds yet.  We heard from someone today that he wasn't sure if he was voting Conservative or Liberal Democrat, but he was sure he didn't want Brown any longer. 

People are expecting a Conservative minority victory and then it will be a while until they can form a government and Gordon Brown would be prime minister until a new one has been selected. 


Polls are open until 10pm (it's almost ten now) and we'll be watching the telly for a while.

Weald Country Park, Greensted Church, The Viper

When we got here Tuesday, Doug took us for a walk at Weald Country Park.  According to the brochure (and website):

Weald Country Park has almost 222 hectares (550 acres) of mixed woodland and grassland plus two lakes and a number of ponds. The park is steeped in history and was once the site of a great hall and formal gardens; there are even remains of an Iron Age settlement. There is a network of pathways, a well established visitor centre and a deer paddock. The deer were reintroduced in 1987 as a reminder that the park was once a Royal Hunting Estate.

Then we visited Greensted Church which the blog North Stoke describes:

The nave was added in about 1060 A.D. but the timbers seem to go back to 845 A.D. and since then there have been many more additions, stretching from the Norman piscina, to a Tudor window, the church tower could probably have been built in the 17th century and then of course the Victorian restoration which includes the dormer windows and porch.

Then we stopped at a pub for a pint of ale.

I'm being hurried off to Cambridge. I'll try to get up Wednesday tonight. 

British Election Tomorrow

Thursday is the election.  All members of parliament are up for election and the vote will determine the next prime minister.

Yet I've seen very little sign that there is an election going on.  There was this small sign in a window near our hotel. 

We saw this one for the conservatives yesterday in the countryside of Essex about an hour out of London to the west. 

Saturday afternoon, while visiting a distant relative for tea, a Liberal Democrat (Lib Dem is what the announcers call them) candidate for local council came to the door.  He was asking for her vote and he also had the MP candidate down the street if she wanted to talk to him.  No, she wasn't voting Lib Dem.  She's for Labour.  He wanted to know the issues that were important to her.  But she said she didn't have time, she had guests for tea.

He pointed out that the Labour Party candidate was not even from here while the Lib Dem candidate lived on the next street over.  (You don't have to live in the district you represent.)

The newspapers and tv have lots of coverage.  Pickles is the chair of the Conservative Party and the local candidate from Brentwood and Ongar where I am in Essex now. 

And even Simon Cowell has a word on the elections.

The polls have the Conservatives ahead, but not by that much and with both Labour and the Liberal Democrats with significant percentages.  They say 40% of the electorate is still undecided.  If the Conservatives cannot get an outright majority, it seems that Gordon Brown (the Labour Candidate and current Prime Minister) will continue as Prime Minister until a coalition government is formed.  Whoever wins, our host thinks that a lot of services people here are used to will be cut. 

Visiting with Friends

Monday was a bank holiday in England. The temperatures were 10°C below normal range - so
instead of being in the high 60s F they were under 50 F (10C) and the wind was constantly
tugging. And down into the 30s at night.   But the sun was out.

 SA, a Pakistani civil servant friend, who is in town for two weeks, met us at the hotel accompanied by a former student of his K, who also graduated from the same program as my son in Singapore.

We walked around Russell Square, sat on the bench for a bit, then decided it would be a lot warmer in the Penn Club where we were staying. We solved all the problems of the world over a couple of hours.

At three Gene Dugan picked us up

and gave us his special walking tour of London. Gene,m formerly of Anchorage, now has an Irish passport along with his US passport and is standing (not running) for election to the local council as a Green Party member. The elections are Thursday and I'll try to do a post on them as well. Gene is the second local council candidate we've met.

Our tour included the Greater Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for children whose patron saint is Peter Pan. James Barrie left them the rights to Peter Pan when he died.
[UPDATE:  February 17, 2011 - GOSH emailed a new web address link which I've added.  It would be nice if others did that when they change the url.  GOSH, Thanks.]

Gene worked here for a while and showed us the gem of a chapel in the hospital.
Although they have chaplains of many denominations, the chapel is clearly oriented towards Christians. But it is beautiful.

We stopped into one of the many betting shops. I just wanted to see what was inside. There are also casinos here.

We did have to check out the Ethical Society.

Gene's tour included a few big name attractions as well as the quirky.  We saw the Tower of London

 Which had signs in more languages than I'd ever seen before.  But not Arabic which I thought strange.

(Double click to enlarge the photo)

 Then across the Tower Bridge to South London, where we saw some kids  taking advantage of some architectural features perfect for making leaps on their bikes.

Eventually, we made it to Gene and Jay's home, where Jay was waiting and we had a delightful
dinner and conversation that we were sorry to break off, but they had work and school in the

morning and we had a train to catch. We're on the train now as I type, but there's no wifi so I'm
not sure when I'll get to actually post this. There was sun out this morning, but it's grey now
again.

We're headed to visit with Doug who visited us in Anchorage in 2008. Doug and I first met in
Amsterdam when I was a student in Göttingen. We traveled a bit together the following summer
in UK and then I visited him again on my way back from Peace Corps Thailand when he was
teaching English in Uganda. Our reunion two years ago after almost 40 years went well and
we're looking forward to spending a few days with him exploring outside London.

 [It's Wednesday already.  I finally gave up on making the wifi work and so I'm doing this from Doug's computer.  Nice afternoon enjoying nature and small town England.  But the level of traffic is, for the roads, pretty high. More later.]

Pfeiffer's The Saints - West Germany v. England 1966

In 1966 West Germany and England played in the championship world cup game.  This was just 21 years after the end of WW II and it was a big game.  The outcome was controversial with questions about the ref's call. 

Paul Pfeiffer recreates the event is a huge piece we saw at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin last week. 

The video is short, but gives you a better sense of this piece than I could describe.  And one has to assume, that with the popularity of football (soccer) around the world, this is art for the masses. 

It said that the sound in the original video of the game wasn't good enough, so he hired about 1000 Filipinos in Manila to recreate the cheers of the crowd and combined the original with the new sound recording.