High Culture

I'm trying to think of what theme today turned out to have. It was going to be religion, but then we went to a West End show, so perhaps theatre is more appropriate for the whole day after all.

We wanted an early start, and since St Paul's opens at 8.30 we started there. Not quite that early, but it wasn't very crowded, so that was good. St Paul's was appropriately impressive, and as beautiful and awe-inspiring as we had been led to believe. We climbed up to the first level of dome, but didn't feel the need to climb up further a spiral staircase to go high up outside to a steep roof on a chill morning. Instead we went down into the crypt. What a fascinating place is a crypt! So many different characters, cheek by jowl with each other, and nowhere to step if you want to try to be respectful and avoid their namestones.

We were looking at all sorts of complicated ways to get to Westminster Abbey from the closest station, then a phone app pointed out that actually we only need to go one stop from the station a few minutes' walk away, so that was useful. As we emerged from the Westminster Station, the roofline of the Houses of Parliament appeared right in front, with Big Ben looming over us. This was the right place!

It was interesting to compare Christchurch's neo-gothic to actual, genuine, ancient gothic. The scale of the Abbey is magnificent, but as a tourist, you tend to keep looking around and down, to see if you're walking past, or on, anyone you've ever heard of. Such tombs! Such history! Such pomp! And what sort of family do you have to be in to get yourself buried in the same room as a monarch, for goodness sake? What power there must have been in play there. And to what end? Sure, a thousand years later people will see your name, but they're only wondering who you were. And they've probably been doing that for the last 925 years. (Note to self: Cancel the plans for the mausoleum.)

We left the Abbey and hopped on a bus up towards Charing Cross to see what tickets were available for a matinee. We're staying a bit too far out of town to be bothered going to a show at night (oh, and we're sad old farts), so we went through the list of shows we'd like to see, to see what had a matinee on today. There were several, and the one at the top of the list was "Sunny Afternoon," a musical of songs by the Kinks. We bought the last-minute tickets (36 pounds each - don't know if they were discounted or not) then found a place for lunch on the way across to the theatre. The show was really enjoyable. I wouldn't have described myself as a fan of the Kinks, but a lot of my favourite songs from that era turn out to be theirs. And in fact, my phone's ringtone is "Waterloo Sunset." The show was a sort of biography of the band, and the songs fitted in well with the plot, and were well-performed. The finale was "Lola" and the whole audience was standing and clapping and dancing - fantastic! The theatre was full, which surprised me, and although many people were older than us, there were quite a few younger as well. But it was funny to see the white-haired old

grannies and bald granddads out of their seats and bopping at the end, even though I know the music is really more their era than mine. Now I want to see another show - maybe in Manchester with Matt and Jess, or when we come back to London at the end. Any show will do. Great stuff.

Afterwards we went for a walk, just to get more familiar with the streets of London. We walked around Piccadilly Circus, then up Regent St and along, because it was a very pleasant evening. We found a place to have quite a cheap dinner, then continued walking down to Marble Arch so we could get back to Mile End without changing lines. (I love saying all these names, so familiar from novels, and now they turn out to be real places that you can actually go to! That's so cool!)

It was a good day. Now, what do we do tomorrow?