Have been taking walking tours over the last few days.

Sunday we did a London Walk titled London in the Swinging 60’s

This was a very fun tour led by Adam pictured below with a statue of Twiggy, who growing up ,was teased by the nickname Twigs.

This was fun. Among other things he is carrying a mini Marshall Amp through which he played songs from various eras of the BBC post WWII period .

He dispelled myths and told great insider stories.

Since we’re with Twiggy let talk about Mary Quont’s creation The Mini skirt. Mary told the following story.

Many years after the mini hit the scene a reporter asked her, Aren’t you proud for inventing the mini skirt.

She said , I created

this dress that was as short as I thought I could get away with.

Women would come into the shop and Mary would ask them what they thought. They said it was fine, but the hem could be higher. She came out with another shorter version.

She asked the customers what they thought of that version. They liked it very much. But you make the hem line higher yet. So she did.

She then tells the reporter, I didn’t make the miniskirt, the women of London did.

Off to the left another 20 yards away you see this figure representing you and me at the time.

Our tour continued with visits to the bay window where Keith Richard’s wrote , Street Fighting Man.

We ended at the Holy of Holys.

The plaque on the right honors the house where Handel lived and composed.

The plaque on the left?

Of course as we approached Adam played the opening notes to Foxy Lady. This white boy had never heard a woman described as a fox. “It was boss”

Pretty wild to go shopping where Jimi and his girlfriend went shopping for household items.

So to celebrate I bought some underwear at the same store.

Doesn’t get more white boy than that!

See you soon

Last night we took the tube to an area called The Coal Drops Yard to attend a show at The Lightroom.

Last time we were here we saw a retrospective of David Hockney. This retrospective was unlike anything you have experienced unless you’ve been to France for the Van Gough immersive .

Before we get to that check out how they have repurposed their gas holders

There was also a series of photographs dedicated to Amy Winehouse

Now back to the show.

This show was about Aladdin Sane, Major Tom, The Thin White Duke’s creator David Bowie.

Mesmerizing, enveloping, inspiring to his creative genius.

Gonna take a stab at the video again

A few weeks ago I was listening to on ITunes David Bowie Essentials and had forgotten the huge body of work. He created.

In the Lightroom show he speaks at length of many things including his creative drive and process.

I love hearing about people’s process journeys.

After the show we had a 10 minute walk to the Tube and we’re back at the hotel within an hour.

I was out this AM to clear skies, and a nice walk along the Thames listening to to Tina’s Autobiography. She was talking about many things including the making of album Private Dancer. ( The song was written by Mark Knoffler).

Realizing I had not listened to it in decades,I cued it up and danced in a sculpture park before bouncing to breakfast.

We spent today at The Victoria and Albert Museum. Took a tour titled Remarkable Women.

The first piece we saw is Japanese Black Laquer.

Yes, More

Sensuousness

Title: Body

The following two pieces were cut,assembled and laid by female women prisoners. Their names are unknown,what prisons they were in is unknown.

We do know that a contractor was paid by the museum to install them., so he made a contract with the women’s prison

You can bet your bottom dollar that the women were paid a pittance., and of course no credit was given to them for their work,exquisite as it is. Some of the women docents and one in particular are working to unearth this story and acknowledge these women

Cue up the Phil Spector version of River Deep Mountain High. Tina made this with Spector and without Ike.

Ike got credit for legal reasons but didn’t play a note in this version.

Most places around here don’t open until 9 for breakfast.

Put on the rain gear and headed to the dockside bakery.

It was quite busy with take away orders but no place to sit inside.

So we found a place on the porch overlooking the harbor, buttoned up our coats and enjoyed our breakfast, of coffee and rolls.

Struck up conversation with a couple who were traveling through the Hebrides in their boat.

They had laid over for a day waiting for the storm to pass.

Next to them was a German woman, who was traveling solo because her travel companion was injured.

She was complaining about German train system like we complain about BART.

Then we went to the Mallaig historical center.The gentleman taking admissions was a wonderful font of information. He had done numerous jobs in the area along with various volunteer jobs. One of which was volunteering with the Life boat service.

He was not on the boats, but worked as a press officer.

Here’s the thing, With the exception of 2 people per station the whole service is volunteer.

Everyone carries a beeper, and when an incident occurs they stop what they’re doing and get into action. Their bosses have agreed this arrangement. This is COMMUNITY.

How is paid for? Donations. These boat’s , equipment, maintenance training etc are paid for by donations. The boats alone are millions of dollars each!

They say when the boats head out,often there will be a crowd at the harbor. I love it!

Remember our waiter? I’ve returned for another lunch and more laughter.

A woman next to us said”I have a question “ His response before she could make her statement “ I’ve got many questions, proceed”

I think if I set on the edge of a chair like that I would

be ass over teakettle in a heartbeat!

We’ll leave you with the curtains closing on our day

Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry

We’re back in the portrait gallery.

During the Iraq war he did two acts that saved the lives of his English comrades.

These acts were of a magnitude that earned him the 1st Victoria Cross awarded since 1969 .

The next one I was drawn to like a magnet due to the brushwork and colors.

As I gazed at the picture the following thoughts passed through.

Tired yet determined

Empathy with steel resolve

Kindness with boundaries

Scientific rigor with vulnerability that allows those being studied to behave with few if any filters, thereby eliciting an accurate study.

As I looked she was quite serious.

I walked away and returned a little later and saw a smile.

Try it, look away wait 60 secs ,then turn back, she will briefly smile

Tenacity and civil disobedience. Good trouble as John Lewis would say some 30 odd years later

This morning I took a self guided tour of Tower Bridge

This is what the morning commute looked like.

There are two walkways high above the roadbed that you can experience if you want to climb 209 steps orrrrrrrrrrr take an elevator

There is a glass floor that you can walk across.

2nd try

A few thoughts about our Lady In Blue

What I realized I like so much about this figure is what it brings forth from my subconscious.

Her breasts, thighs, and buttocks convey a comfort and pride in her self image. Mohammad Ali said it “ I’m Beautiful “ An awareness of the beauty of her being, in command of her sexuality.

Her stride shows power,purpose and direction in her life.

Look carefully ,by blowing up the picture, and see her smile, she is nobody’s fool

May each of us love our gifts we bring to the world.

13 million rivets, 31 million bricks

This Lady strides across Trafalgar Square.

The first few times passing by in a bus I wondered ,what’s this about? My gut reaction was I really liked it.

We have moved to the East side of London about 2 blocks away from The Tower of London and Tower Bridge

When William the Conqueror built The Tower of London,he was making a statement about “the new boss in town.”

When anyone approaching they saw a huge gleaming white edifice in the distance. Quite the power statement.

We spent part of an afternoon in the National Portrait Gallery. I love Portrait Galleries. I guess because sometimes it gives a feeling of being near greatness.

But if you did be thankful for his work.Awake Craniotomy’s are done to correct a problem in the brain while your awake. For instance your a saxophonist with a glioblastoma.

As they are removing the cancer they might have you play your sax to make sure the operation isn’t interfering with your ability to play. YES this has been done successfully, any times

There is a good Wikipedia page about him.

I’m off to tour Tower Bridge. More to come

The picture below was taken at a water pump on Broadwick St ( Formerly known as Broad St) in London

The reason the handle is missing is because one of my hero’s did the work to prove that this well was a source of Cholera during an outbreak in 1854.By going house to house and with the help of others he was able to show that people who drank water from this pump had died . This was early germ theory and epidemiology.

It was highly controversial to remove the handle and the company who supplied the water were not happy..

The deaths slowed down and then Stopped.

You want integrity? He admitted that the fleeing population may have contributed to the decline.

Of course we now know it was removing the source of the contamination . Hence our clean water infrastructure and non existent cholera unilateral those systems get contaminated.

Interested ,read The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson.

The Wikipedia article is very good.

He was also a pioneer in the use of anesthesia

Here’s to you health

Paul.

Affter checking carefully for mischevious Bears we disembarked at Paddington Station yesterday.

Hopped into one of their fantastic cabs and took a slow crawl across the city to our residence for the next 3 days. To get to our quarters required ascending 3 flights of stairs, straight out of Amsterdam.

Our room was a far cry from Birmingham.

Yes that is a chandelier

After an early dinner I headed out to get lost and do Laundry .

Saturday morning at 7 I’m walking to visit old haunts.

Speaking of old

I wanted to go back to see the clinic that had been helpful and caring when I had been so debilitated 3 years ago. The staff, Nurses, and MD’s at The clinic at Grace Hospital . We’re very empathetic, and caring.

I couldn’t walk half a block with a cane without resting.

For several days hardly left the room.

One day after leaving the clinic,Marlina asked if I wanted to take a taxi a block and a half to breakfast, I said no I can get there going slow.

I’m going to ask you to go to your music provider and cue up Peter Gabriel’s rendition of Heroes by David Bowie.

I was tired ,in pain and frankly quite scared wondering what my life would be like be like going forward.

Throughout this whole episode Marlina was and is a hero, with her patience, and doing everything she could to help me..

As I was walking through this neighborhood today,I had that song playing with tears of thanks in my eyes.

Odds and Ends in the Marlyborne neighborhood

As we were waundering

We came upon an old locked hand pump. More to come tomorrow

We’ ve been traveling by trains and buses over the last few days. Not the fastest, but more relaxing and lets your eyes drift over the landscape.

We were coming out of the Scot Highlands and into North Western England..

We overnighted in Birmingham before ending here in Bourton on the Water.

In Birmingham we stayed in a room above a Pub.

It is an OLD pub.

The bed was from the 1800’s I’m sure.

There was less likelihood of me falling out of a hammock on the side of El Capitan than there was of falling out of that bed!

The toilet used a pump to refill the tank that went on. For 10 mins after each flush. The pump noise woke up the dead but thank god it didn’t wake up Marlina with her hearing aids out.

The train dropped us off and we waited 45 mins in a bus shelter before we got to Bourton on the water. I realized that I couldn’t get warm. Not good , an early sign of hypothermia.( Yes even in 50 degree weather) Got into a restaurant. Drank a large hot chocolate 2 candy bars and some salmon and rice and started to warm up

That afternoon we took a walk to The hamlet of Lower Slaughter. At the water driven mill I saw this.

We used later vintage mixers like this in the candy factory.

Many an hour spent filling ,mixing to the right consistency, and dumping vats of chocolate.

The next AM I got up and took a walk after breakfast .

After a few wrong turns I was on my way to Upper Slaughter .There are walls and stone structures everywhere.

Notice the beautiful straight lines, Then I saw the wall pictured below.

See where the middle is sinking

There are stone walls everywhere.

Most are in good shape, but when I looked at this one, I could see trouble” a brewin”

When I looked over the fence I could see the yard sloping from each side to the middle , then sloping into the ground at the middle of this bulge. The foundation was failing due to erosion. Get out the checkbook.

On I walked and met some horse and sheep friends. No rams this time

Blow up the picture to see how to repurpose a phone booth

After the morning walk wandered around town.

Tomorrow we are on our way to London. Going to spend a couple af days staying above another pub, We’ll see how it turns out

This beautiful piece of work was just outside the National Portrait Gallery

We took a 3 1/2 hour train ride to Inverness.

Passing through ancient glacial carved valleys

The man in the mirror

Spent the afternoon wandering through the streets.

The next morning had breakfast in a charity cafe that supported the local hospice. The hospice is in the same building as the cafe. Inclusion

I had forgotten how many charity shops there are, supporting many causes.They can be very upscale and in high traffic areas in the middle of town. Seem to-be integral parts of the local communities.

We had coffee in one yesterday that benefited people living on the streets or who needed food.

There were shelves with food items that people could help themselves to, no questions asked.

If they needed tents sleeping pads, or other things for living outside, they spoke with one of the volunteers who would assist them.

The idea of INCLUSION instead of exclusion.

Inverness is on the Ness river that feeds the infamous Loch.

There are a series of islands with nice walking paths that you can access via suspension bridges. Some of which cross the river

The folks around here have become very inventive with their fallen logs.

It’s Tuesday AM and we’re rolling

We spent yesterday at Kelvin Grove a huge museum and art gallery here in Glasgow.

Certain history white washers would hate this place.

Every room had something about what colonialism did to the countries they dominated.

Many pieces of art had signs in RED stating the piece had been donated by people or their companies who had used slavery to obtain their wealth.

This piece tells a story of Buddha and some of his travels

Of course I found a Van Gough I had not seen before.

The gentleman was a roommate of Van Gogh at some part of his life

I know I’ve spoken to of this before but each time I see this style it elicits such passion.Each brush stroke is so visceral and sensual. They are so dynamic and alive. Pretty amazing that how strokes of color can bring up such emotions.

Lucky to experience it.

Grateful to open oneself up and to let it overtake us

Along our colonialism thread

Currently it is the neighborhood where a large LGBT COMMUNITY , Indigenous and many others live, work and socialize.

When you look behind you while facing the above building you see this piece

They were commissioned to do this piece that honors indigenous peoples all over the world.

One of the things I thought was interesting was the Unicorn, a symbol ofScotland. The Scots were subjugated to the English crown for centuries.

The Stone of Scone was a stone that Scot Kings and Queens knelt on when they were being crowned. When the English subjugated them,they took the stone and placed it under the throne in Westminster .

It wasn’t returned to Scotland until 1996. So the Scots also have be subjugated and colonized

One meaning of the term Keeper of the light is the “Lighthouse Principle” An individual’s duty to protect their own mental, emotional and spiritual well being.

Once again let yourself bath in the detail, colors hues, and content. This was a huge collaborative project involving the residents , merchants, indigenous peoples and many others input.

It is dripping in symbolism.A few of the things I am aware of:

The figure non binary = Inclusion

The colors red elicits passion and pride

The candlestick in the right hand directs you to the old candle making neighborhood

In the left hand ( hidden behind the tree ) is a cocktail glass directing you to the thriving restaurant and club scene in that direction.

A couple more photos of the area:

Well, We’ll be leavin ya now. Onto the Cotswalds in England