I <3 The National Portrait Gallery

It's not exactly the most glam museum in London, but the National Portrait Gallery is still one of my favorite places to kill a couple of hours in an afternoon, especially when it's bitter cold outside and you're looking for something to do on the cheap. It's a slog through the tourist crowds to get there (the NPG is the National Gallery's caboose, right between Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square) and the gallery is smallish - you can do the whole thing in the aforementioned couple of hours if you want - but what a gallery.

It's like walking through the Head Museum in Futurama, except that the heads are paintings and they don't talk. OK, it's only remotely similar to the head museum. But for people who enjoy a good romp through history's halls, it's like being with the characters from your favorite book. Richard III? Henry VIII? Charles II? All there. The symbolism in some of the earlier paintings is like a Where's Waldo for history buffs.

The NPG is one of the little unsung heroes of my city. And I do love it.

Hadrian!! (Rhymes with Adrian!! from Rocky)

It is an undisputed fact that the British Museum is one of the best museums in the world, not only because it houses pretty much the entire history of the human race under its roof but also because it is absolutely free unless you're going to see a special exhibition. It was just such an exhibition that the Beautiful Competition and I ponied up for last weekend with our pals Simon and Sarah: Hadrian: Empire and Conflict.

It was my first special exhibition at the Museum and was, for the most part, tasteful, educational and interesting. Hadrian was one of the 'good' Roman emperors; he recognized his official responsibilities and left the Empire a better place, helped rebuild Rome (the Pantheon was Hadrian's idea, which served as a model of the Reading Room at the British Museum where the exhibition is held); he pursued a conservative foreign policy building his famous Wall to define the Empire's borders and started abandoning Roman holdings in Dacia and Mesopotamia to consolidate the Empire's power and not overextend it.

Hadrian was also responsible for suppressing the last Jewish revolt in Judea and the creation of the province of Syria-Palestine and the Diaspora that scattered the Jews across the Empire. He had a variety of young male lovers, including one who died by falling in the Nile on a state visit to Egypt. He understood the power of imagery and the most interesting part of the exhibition was the variety of statues depicting Hadrian in a range of different garbs, from warrior to Greek philosopher to god incarnate. It's a wonderful example of ancient public relations and communications and 'brand management': by appearing in a guise that made the most sense to the people in a particular area, Hadrian could be a chameleon whose leadership was accepted in an Empire as multicultural as any today. In that regard, he was brilliant.

The exhibition was interesting but left you feeling a little lacking in content; there was very little in the way of context for most of the exhibit, and although you learn a few interesting tidbits the brilliance of exhibitions like this is that the have the ability to help contextualize history a little more. For example, in the part of the exhibit about the revolt in Judea, I wanted more of the exhibit to contextualize it not only in the history of that time, but in what came before and after in that part of the world. History for me is always a series of relationships that evolve over time, fluid and seamless; it is never isolated events, which is how it was (incorrectly) presented to me in school and how this seemed to present itself.

Hey, it's still worth the money though, especially if you're interested in the period. The model of Hadrian's villa is unbelievably awesome.

Roman London: The Walk

I picked up a copy of historian Stephen Inwood's Historic London: An Explorer's Companion not long after arriving here and have used it sporadically for recommendations on historic pubs and other one-off things to do. The first section is a walk through Roman-era London, which I finally managed to pull off last weekend based on a combination of favorable weather and a desire to get out of the flat and do something.

The walk covers The City, the oldest parts of London that used to be encircled by the city's wall. Originally the Romans built London (Londinium) as a strategic center because the Thames is a natural harbor. It was essentially a supply point for their efforts further inland; it wasn't the capital of the province and was only important as a waypoint. But like many waypoints (say, Chicago) it eventually became important in its own right.

We started at the Tower of London, not a tower at all but the fortress where the King used to reside when he wasn't traipsing around somewhere else. We didn't pony up to go in – it's stupid expensive and we did it the last time we were here – but it's always interesting to see because it's one of the few examples of a completely intact medieval building in the city. Not completely completely intact as various changes have been made throughout the ages, but it's close.

The object of my interest is just north of the Tower, literally right outside the Tower Hill Tube station. There's a massive section of the old city wall there, although only the bottom three meters or so are Roman; the rest were added in the middle ages. It makes a good basis to start the walk. From there, we wound north, taking in various sections of wall. One is in the courtyard of a five-star hotel; another is in the basement of an office complex, visible through the windows.

This represents London the city in ways that nothing else could: ancient architecture, as old as the settlement itself, that has been completely subsumed by the new around it. Built around, knocked down when it wasn't needed anymore, and developed upon. That is London, and it's amazing to think of all the layers of history one on top of the other.

We headed north to the appropriately-named London Wall (a street), and jogged west, following bits of the wall as we went. We passed the not-so-PC streets Jewry Street and Saracen's Head Court (!) along the way, enjoying the City on a quiet Saturday afternoon.

Unlike many other European cities I've visited, London follows its American counterparts in that its business and financial areas close down on evenings and the weekends. In some parts of the City, you can walk several blocks without finding an open pub or coffee place, or without seeing another person. It can actually get a little creepy because the city just seems so empty, moreso when you compare it to areas like Camden where things are hopping all the time.

We ended our trip at the Guildhall, another fine example of surviving medieval architecture, although one that was rebuilt extensively after the Blitz and the Great Fire. Again, this is London: a city that has been razed both naturally and unnaturally throughout the ages. It's almost Biblical the way some disaster or another occasionally comes along to cleanse the city of some of its old floatsam, burying ancient buildings in piles of rubble. But at the same time it was this destruction that lead to the discovery of much of what is known about Roman London: the Blitz uncovered many of the sections of wall that were previously lost, and revealed other things like the postern gate outside of the Tower and the amphitheatre now housed in the Guildhall Gallery.

These are the times when I love London the most, when I feel the most connected to the city itself. Being here is like living in history, breathing the dust and pieces of so many people who walked here before and left their mark on the town. It's easy to lose sight of this because I go to work every day, but it's important to get out every once in a while and not take for granted that I live in one of the greatest cities on the planet.

Check out the Flickr photos.

A Day Out In London: A Narrative By Jason Mical

Liz Ready

Time: 12:40 PM
Location: Holloway Road

"Woke up, got out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, i noticed i was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat"

Holloway Road

Note: we did not take a bus. But it is time for a day on the town, a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon walking around our new home town. Holloway Road stretches south towards London. Did you know that Holloway Road goes all the way to Scotland as the A1? It's true, there are signs for "The North" everywhere. It's a very vague term to see on a sign.

It's a 10 minute walk from our flat to the Holloway Road tube station and we're taking it slow, joking and laughing. The Nag's Head shopping center is across the street, home of the Morrisons where we buy most of our groceries.

12:43

Time to get a move on, we've only got a few hours! The usual hubbub on Holloway Road, a half-dozen languages - English, Arabic, French, Italian, etc. - all around us and people of every size, color and shape. The newspaper calls some of them chavs and others dangerous but I realize more and more it's just the latest iteration of classism.

Scouting

The Scout Center is a bit of a conundrum since you can't do a lot of camping here and there's always trash piled outside (aren't Scouts clean here?) but as an Eagle scout I have to salute them for at least trying. The good old three-finger Scout salute in fact.

Speaking of, "we like to hike along, hike along, light-heart and free... we like a rowdy song, rowdy song, jolly good bunch of Scouts are we.." [repeat 10x]

Underground

Then it's down into the mirror city, the upside-down city of the Tube. The dirt on the sign is nothing compared to what lurks in the tunnels but believe it or not it all seems cleaner than it was the last time I was here. At least I'm not blowing as much black snot out of my nose as I used to.

That's a good thing right?

The Tube is like, well, many things. That's part of its beauty: it's a metaphor for some many things, and so many things are a metaphor for it. Aside from London itself, there are very few things that can inspire such networks of thought.

Fines

It's hard to charge a fine for something when the thing you'll be fined for using is broken / gone / nonexistent, but that won't stop them from trying I guess. I wonder how much someone got paid to create the placard, because the 'button' certainly looks to be permanently gone.

The idea of a key emergency button seems like it defeats the purpose of said button, eh? If the only one who can use it needs a key... oh fuck it, never mind.

Useless

Speaking of useless as tits on a bull, I don't think I've ever seen this so-called 'help station' in service. I guess I'm glad I've never needed help in the Holloway Road tube station because I'd have to run around and find someone first.

But we're not here for help, not today. We're here to keep going, deeper into the rabbit-hole of the Underground.

Adultery

Those crazy Europeans, free from Puritanical views on sex. Actually this ad is kind of uncommon and it was only up for about a week; it's been replaced now by an ad for the new Mary J. Blige album, but I'd actually rather have this suggestive and admittedly effective piece of advertising up there anyway. You can kind of see how the walls of the tube station curve here, giving the Tube its nickname.

It's actually called the Underground, which is equally appropriate. No one officially calls it the Tube but they might as well, kind of like the way people in New York refer to New Jersey as "shit."

Sign for Line

Urban Dictionary seyz:

whippin picadilly
d: having nothing to do, wasting time

Guy: "Hey man, what's up?"
Other guy: "Nothing, just whippin' picadilly."

I can only imagine they're referring to the wait time on the Picadilly line from about 8:15 - 8:45 am. On Sundays, there's no wait so we waltz right on the train and continue.

No/Motion

Speed is a relative thing when you're on the Tube. When the black walls are six inches from the window, it looks like you're flying by even though when they suddenly drop away for a switch or something it looks like you're only going about 10 MPH.

Escalators are no different; it's all relative, I suppose. Still the Tube is typically faster than any other form of transport in London because it travels in a (generally) straight line from point to point and somehow the hodgepodge of competing railroads from the 1800s actually managed to make a layout that decently serves most of London.

1:05

Even after a quick change of lines it's still only 1:05, so about 20 minutes from when we left our flat and walked by the Nag's Head till when we're in central London. Bloomsbury to be exact.

Most literary types know Bloomsbury by the people who hung out here: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and some other poor chumps who never became quite as famous. It's one of those quiet sections of London where you go to stroll around because there aren't a lot of tourists or other people to get in your way; at the very north end is the British Museum. At the south end is Chancery Lane.

Oyster Card

This is an Oyster card. This is a newfangled invention so you don't have to buy paper tickets every time you want to ride the Tube. It carries a balance on it for single trips, or you can do what we did and buy monthlong or yearlong passes (at a discount.) It works by and RFID chip.

Conspiracy theorists and right-wing loonies are constantly shitting themselves about how the government can track where you are at any time because of these things. I find that exceptionally hard to believe because most times I have to lay mine on the reader for two or three seconds for it to pick up the signal. We're a little ways off from real-time people-tracking. That's what all those CCTV cameras are for, sillies!

Griffin

I want to say a quick word about these griffins, not because of any familial relation but because the griffins are a symbol of London. A similar pair guard the south side of London Bridge, and this used to be one of the gates to the city which these fellows used to guard.

Oddly enough, Griffins used to be the symbol of the Iceni tribe, whose queen, Boudica, burned Londinium to the ground after the Romans abandoned it to her army. Griffins and London go way back.

2:00

A brief meander later and we're looking up Regent Street. Our destination: the Dover Castle, a pub near my office where I've eaten lunch a few times. We're out for their Sunday Roast, a traditional English dish eaten on Sunday consisting of Roast. But where Regent turns into Great Portland is this church, rebuilt several times, most recently after the Blitz. Even what's new looks old here.

The Beeb

Speaking of, here's a pair of jokers outside the BBC office. The BBC is the UK's answer to... well, I'd say PBS but that would be insulting the BBC. It's entirely funded by taxpayers so there's no commercials, and it's channel 1 on every TV in the country instead of channel 50-something. And it actually has interesting content and cool shows, although their special effects are laughably bad most of the time.

Pit

Typically you don't get a good look inside construction sites because there are big fences to keep you out - mostly because there are a lot of dumbasses around who, when drunk, might think it's a good idea to go playing around in construction sites. Hell I've done that in my adult life and I wasn't even drunk. And the results were not pretty.

I learned after our walk that this is the location of the New Beeb - the BBC's new office building. Apparently the bottom floors of the building will be located somewhere in China because goddamn that's a big pit. I can't wait to see what it will look like when it's done.

One Glove

There's kind of a lost-and-found thing going on here, but this glove looks really nice. So I made up this limmerick about it:

There once was a glove lost in London
Which smelled a bit like an onion
It sat on a spike
And said "this I like,"
"For I don't have to cover a bunion."

Needs some work huh?

Flashman

Seth only recently introduced me to the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser, who sadly died just a little while ago. Flashman is an anti-hero I can admire if not identify with: a coward who constantly shirks responsibility, sleeps with many women and betrays people.

Maybe admire isn't the right word.

I can however admire this statue, which looks like I kind of imagined Flashman to look. If he were made of Bronze.

Pub

And we arrived at the Dover Castle, which turned out to be closed. It's down the tiny Weymouth Mews, surrounded by houses that cost more than a million pounds. The irony is that they used to be servant's quarters (a "Mews" is the street where the carriage-houses were for the rich folk) and the pub's prices are really low compared with most of the rest of London. My local boozer in Holloway is more expensive.

BT

So we set out in search of something else, which took us right by my office and the lovely views of this big phallic symbol. Its tall and yes, it looks like a big wiener. It's also covered with BT's mobile phone sending/receiving devices so I imagine working in it would be akin to frolicking around Chernobyl as far as the radiation exposure goes. Which is probably why none of the offices in there are occupied anymore.

It is definitely a noticeable part of London though, and it's a long way from the Isle of Dogs and the rest of London's really big buildings.

Food

We eventually found another pub with an even cheaper roast so we went up, ordered some pints and noshed some, um, nosh. The roast was boiled beef and the gravy came from a can and the sprouts were overdone but otherwise it was OK. The good news is there was a really good cider on tap, which I'm starting to like as a good beer choice even if it is a little sweet.

Grey

The name of the place was the Yorkshire Grey, and I'd definitely go back again. It's one of those quintessential pubs: horrible wallpaper, strange photos or memorabilia on the wall, great beer on tap, food, a few people talking quietly. I like a pub where I don't have to ask my tablemates to repeat themselves.

I just wrote "tablemates" which is a pretty British sounding term. Crikey, I have to watch my language around here eh guvnur?

Buried

So a brief walk later - if you want to see the pictures go to my Flickr stream - and we're in Marylebone, near Regent's College, our old haunt. The churchyard for St. Marylebone (a bastardization of St. Mary le Bone, in case you're wondering) holds some awesome old graves which you don't realize you're standing on until it's too late because they're the sidewalk leading through the churchyard (actually a peace park, because that part of the church was destroyed during the Blitz.) It's awful small to read on the sign, but one of the great forebears of my craft is buried there which I didn't realize until I read the placard: Hoyle, of the Book of Games fame. He was buried here in 1769.

Detective

A little further along and we find this familiar fellow:

"His very person and appearance were such as to strike the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet,and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariable blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating the fragile philosophical instruments."

4:10

And by now it's time to head home, a little tired but happy and satisfied at a great day out in London.

Like I said before, so many people compare London to so many things that it practically serves as a metaphor for everything at the same time. I will say this: it is very much a giant, collective organism more than the sum of its millions upon billions of parts. Say what you will about many cities, but there is no place like London anywhere else on Earth and I love living here.