Plaques on Walls

Everywhere you go in London, there are plaques on walls, reminding you of the many people of historical significance who have lived and worked in this city. Here are just a few that I noticed. As a reader, art-lover, history lover, I love to see the plaques, they bring the city so much more to life for me.

T.S Eliot! His words are in my head.

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

The Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, poets, artists, dreamers, oh my, all those beautiful people met here.

John Nash, Architect whose vision created so much of London's classical buildings.

George Bernard Shaw, and then, later, Virginia Woolf.

 

Francisco De Miranda, whose vision saw Latin America gain its freedom and nationhood, breaking away from Spanish colonial rule.

Simon Bolivar, the man who led the movement founded on Miranda's views and the revolution in Venezuela, stayed here.

"The Junta sent a delegation to Great Britain to get British recognition and aid. This delegation, which included future Venezuelan notables Simón Bolívar and Andrés Bello, met with and persuaded Miranda to return to his native land. There he agitated for the provisional government to declare independence."

I picture just a few of those plaques. They're everywhere.

I Was... Oh, Well Yes, I Was Meaning to Post a Follow-Up,

To my adventures in Londinium. 

I live a couple of hundred miles north of London, and visit it hardly ever. Jump on a train, it's two and a half hours away, but somehow it rarely occurs to me to take that trip. 

Last week, however, I had to travel to London. I am, as some of my readers know, planning to move across the atlantic, to Texas, to marry the Red Dirt Girl, who is and was the person whose blog, back almost seven years ago, prompted me to write a comment, thanking her for her posts on poetry, art, shoes, which I had enjoyed reading, over a christmas/new-year period when I was sick, at home, and feeling sorry for myself. Her writings and the pictures and poems roused me out of my self-pity and misery. And I wrote a comment, she replied, and as her comments wouldn't allow me to post without a blogger i.d., or so I thought, I was maybe wrong, but I'd only just discovered the smorgasbord of the blog world, I started a blog.  This blog. 

Seven years, a chance encounter. Seven months after the first correspondence, she flew to England. I took her to York Minster, on the third day of her visit, and, sitting there, gazing up at the brightly coloured mediaeval windows, I told her that I intended to marry her, that was a promise, a vow.

And she seemed to think that was a good idea. She smiled a lot, cried a little, and we wandered around the ancient Minster Church hand in hand. 

Here we are, years later. She was separated from her husband when we met, but there was a divorce to negotiate, a new life for her, living on her own terms, and I had an elderly mother, slipping into dementia, and then cancer. 

RDG came over here several times, I flew to be with her too, and, a year and a half ago, I brought up the subject of that York promise again. We set it all in motion. Neither of us knew just how difficult it is for an englishman to marry an american woman. It seems so easy in the movies, but in real life you have to fill in a zillion forms. And it takes longer than you could ever imagine. First you have, of course, to locate all the bits of paperwork you'll be needing to present. 

Now, I was married, way back, in 1977. And I got divorced.... um.... when? Where's the court document?

I've lived a lot of life since then, lived in other countries, other towns. I was flooded out, and lost a heap of stuff, pictures, papers.... Probably my divorce papers were there too. Well, I had to rack my brains, figure out the where and when of the marriage,  try remember my ex's date of birth, I even tried to find her, facebook and google failed miserably there. 

Maybe she's still married to my work-colleague's husband, maybe not, but I couldn't find her.  She'd have had the copy of the divorce filed, she was a neatnik, but I can't say I regret not being able to contact her.

It took an application to the court of chancery in London to search for my divorce. And to find it, and get me court-stamped proof.

The paper-trail gets ever longer. We submitted the first application forms in December last year, and now, in August, there's a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, at last, the mysterious processes  nobody will explain seem to have completed in the U.S. and her application to ask for the right to allow me to apply for a K1 visa, to enter the United States with the intention of marrying a U.S. citizen, is granted, papers passed to the United States Embassy in London. 

So then I get to fill in another heap of forms, often referred to as 'packet 3', though these days you download them rather than wait for a packet to plop on the mat.

And then I get to download another set, and fill out my lifetime's medical history.

I started  doing prep work for that months ago, whe I booked a whole heap of vaccinations at my doctor's, because my original records were a bit hazy, it was easier to have a few done again. 

And then, I applied for an appointment for the medical examination.

The exam is required, and can only be carried out by the one medical clinic appointed by the Embassy. And that clinic is in London. 

So to London I did go, travelling down on thursday, back sunday night. Stayed thusrday night in a little hotel in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum.

Thursday evening I checked out my route, the hotel booked a taxi for me...

Actually, they booked an african man in an unmarked car without a taxi-meter. Whose english was not good, and who didn't know how to get to where I needed to be. He chatted (illegally) on his phone, until I got mad at him, and started directing him by the power of google navigation. So I got there on time. No thanks to him. 

I'd asked for, and expected a  real taxi, a London Cab. London cab drivers are phenomenal. Unlike pretty much everywhere else in the world, in order to get a cab drivers licence, you have to demonstrate an absolute mental mastery over the areas where you will drive. 

London is a complex city, no simple rectangular grids here, London's roads weave, bend, change names, no, they're not numbered, there's no such thing as 'a city block', but a London Cabbie must memorise it all, no maps or navigation devices, your cabbie must know the best way, in all varying conditions, from any one place to any other. It's called 'The Knowledge'. 

Around London you'll see young men (and women) on scooters or small motorbikes, with a map on a big board above the handlebars, weaving through the traffic, darting down side-streets. They're 'doing the knowledge', memorising London. 

Neurologists and psychologists, in turn, study them. Because these men and women, their brains change as they learn, building up links and mental agility, and be assured, none will pass without having first to demonstrate that uncanny processing power.

When they are licensed, none will ever know if the passenger who gets in is an ordinary traveller, or if they're from the Public Carriage Office.

Refusing a fare, taking the passenger by an unneccessarily long route, even discourteous behaviour, can get a driver's badge revoked, and thus stop him from working as a taxi driver.

-From Wikipedia:

"The taxicab driver is required to be able to decide routes immediately in response to a passenger's request or traffic conditions, rather than stopping to look at a map, relying on satellite navigation or asking a controller by radio. Consequently, the 'Knowledge^' is the in-depth study of a number of pre-set London street routes and places of interest that taxicab drivers in that city must complete to obtain a licence to operate a black cab. It was initiated in 1865, and has changed little since. It is claimed that the training involved ensures that London taxi drivers are experts on London, and have an intimate knowledge of the city.

It is the world's most demanding training course for taxicab drivers, and applicants will usually need at least twelve 'appearances' (attempts at the final test), after preparation averaging 34 months, to pass the examination.

The 320 main (standard) routes, or 'runs', through central London of the Knowledge are contained within the 'Blue Book' (officially known as the 'Guide to Learning the Knowledge of London' and which is actually pink), produced by the Public Carriage Office which regulates licensed taxis in London. In all some 25,000 streets within a six mile radius of Charing Cross are covered along with the major arterial routes through the rest of London.

A taxicab-driver must learn these routes, as well as the 'points of interest' along those routes including streets, squares, clubs, hospitals, hotels, theatres, embassies, government and public buildings, railway stations, police stations, courts, diplomatic buildings, important places of worship, cemeteries, crematoria, parks and open spaces, sports and leisure centres, places of learning, restaurants and historic buildings.

The Knowledge includes such details as the order of theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, or the names and order of the side streets and traffic signals passed on a route.

There are a number of Knowledge Schools that provide books, maps and classroom tuition which help Knowledge students to learn the 320 runs and points of interest.^[5]

There are separate shorter courses, for suburban London, with 30 to 50 'runs' depending on the sector.

During training, would-be cabbies, known as Knowledge boys (or girls), usually follow these routes around London on a motor scooter, and can be identified by the clipboard fixed to the handlebars and showing details of the streets to be learned that day. Taxi-driver applicants must be 'of good character', meeting strict requirements regarding any criminal record,^[7] then first pass a written test which qualifies them to make an 'appearance'. At appearances, Knowledge boys and girls must, without looking at a map, identify the quickest and most sensible route between any two points in metropolitan London that their examiner chooses. For each route, the applicants must recite the names of the roads used, when they cross junctions, use roundabouts, make turns, and what is 'alongside' them at each point.^"

^{So, my 'taxi' driver disappointed me with his pathetic lack of knowledge and poor driving. It's not as though the fare was significantly cheaper either. I'd have far preferred to pay a real London cab-driver for my journey, secure in the knowledge that he'd take me by the best available route, and drive professionally and safely all the way. (another digressing snippet: A damaged Taxi may not operate until repaired. Therefore, London Taxi drivers are extremely proficient at avoiding even the most minor scrapes).}

^{Where was I? Oh yes, at the Doctor's.  Handing in my paperwork, passport,birth certificate, and my Police Certificate, which declares that I have no record of arrests or convictions anywhere in Britain.}

^{Quite why the medical examiner needs to see that one, I don't know.}

^{And in return, I get a clipboard and a pen with another heap of questions to answer. Waiting room.}

^{After finishing that, I'm called for a chest x-ray.}

^{America needs to be sure I do not have tuberculosis. (Or syphilis, or HIV. Those are the ones specifically mentioned. I'd expect bubonic plague and rabies are not much wanted either).}

^{My xray is fine, no nasty shadows, so I'm returned to the waiting room where I fidget, and watch the other inmates fidgeting.} 

 The doctors' is in a rather grand apartment, remnants of the home it once was can still be seen. Big rooms, fine plasterwork. I'm reminded why I'm there, by the little fanlight window over the waiting room door. 

^{A doctor comes, with a folder of notes, and calls my name. It's on, the exam, where I'm prodded, poked, and questioned.  Every bit of me is up for grabs. My manly parts are scrutinised by the lady doctor. Sheesh... No foreplay, I mean, I'd like to be wined and dined, chatted up, etc, before a lady gropes my dangly bits.} 

^{And then she punctures my arm and draws blood.}

^{Eyes, ears, nose, throat... reflexes, knees, toes, I'm  scrutinised. And, it seems I've passed.} 

^{Blood pressure a bit high. "You're not just a little stressed, by any chance, right now?", she asks, smiling.} 

^{I'm done!}

^{And, thank you, Knightsbridge Doctors, you made the whole thing a lot less stressful than I'd been imagining.}

^{Out onto the street, and a huge leap closer to my future.}

^{Just a few minutes walk away, I happen on a big house in a square, with people waiting outside. It's The Wallace Collection. And it opens at ten, five minutes away.}

^{Pictures from in here will be my next post.}

Thanks to all who wished me luck in comments on my "Soubriquet is in London" post, I do truly appreciate the encouragement. My computer's been acting up, which leads to the late posting of a follow-up, after tracking the problems to the touchpad/mouse driver. It took hour after hour of messing about and scanning for malware, to find and fix the fault.

And this post ? I'm a slow typist, a slower poster. Nearly four hours.

Dark Side, Aardman trailer for BBC Radio 2.

Soubriquet is in London

...For a very important reason. Need to be up  early and out of the hotel, got an appointment at 9 for my U.S. K1 Fiancé Visa Medical Examination!

More info coming soon. Keep your fingers crossed. I have painted my wooden leg a cheerful flesh-like colour, It's doubtful they'll notice. And I polished the glass eye. The right one and the left one too.

Wish me luck.

Another Little Texas Town

This time it's the sleepy little town of Chappell Hill. It's an old town, in Texas terms. The Red Dirt Girl and I were cruising homeward, from Brenham (previously), toward Houston, on U.S. Highway 290.  I was driving, and beginning to feel a little brain-numb. But then we passed a car-sale place, and I perked up, so we turned around to take a look. Now, sadly, I was not in a position to buy, but, dreaming is free, as, I think, Blondie sang. oh. yes, she did, by the wonder of the interweb, she can sing it right here on my blog.




So, we turned around, and went to look at old cars.  It was the Whiz Motor company of Chappell Hill

Outside the gate, there's the buggy that people like Henry Ford were competing against at the start of the motor-car era. This one is, I'd guess, a very late model, early 20th century, I think it's what was known as a Surrey, but without a fringe on top.

I'm saying that very much as a non-expert on horse-drawn vehicles, especially American ones, but what you see here is a pretty sophisticated piece of work, lightweight, agile, strong. Low unsprung weight. Look at the red parts, lightweight, slim wheels, very lightly dished. Note the axle camber, which leans them subtly outward. I'd better not get into the subject of chassis geometry. Cambered wheels go back a ling long way. but the really neat thing you see here is the suspension.  Three-point attachment, the rear of the body sits on a frame which is mounted centrally to the topmost of three multileaved semi-elliptical springs. Roads were rough, but this arrangement would allow a lot of movement up and down of either or both rear wheels, without transmitting most of that to the passengers above.

This would be altogether a smoother, lusher, ride.

Via Nag on the Lake

Or a car for the jet-age.

 I never knew that a cam-shaft was such an exciting thing....

Editor's note: so it occurred to me to look up Giovannoni Cams, and I discovered Ray Giovannoni in  1959, one of the best when it came to getting more power out of an engine, Giovannoni Cams started out in Washington DC, but later moved his business to Daytona, Florida, famous for its motor races and record breaking speed-run attempts on the famous Daytona beach.

Here's the proof:

 

Don Garlits, legendary pioneer dragracer ran with Giovannoni Cams, for one season, in 1959, and broke world records: In his own words "When I got the call from Giovannoni and he said he’d give me $10,000 to change cams -- now, in 1959, $10,000 was a lot of money. You could buy two homes. It’d be like a quarter of a million dollars today. I called up Ed and told him what was going on, and he told me he couldn’t pay me $10,000 and that I should take Giovannoni’s money. Now the good thing about this is that the California cam grinders had just been sitting on their keisters, and Giovannoni did something to his cam, and the car ran real good. We came out to Bakersfield and ran 185.56 for a new world record and went to Fremont and went 187.10 for another world record, and the California cam grinders realized that this idiot from Florida must know something, so they all got on their camshaft programs and put together some pretty good camshafts, Then Giovannoni decided he didn’t like the business anymore, went back to Washington and opened some restaurants, and that was the last anyone ever heard of him."

That wasn't the last anybody heard of him. Whatever the reason might be that Giovannoni turned his back on the world of fast engine tuning, he took himself to further successes, founding a restaurant called "The Fish Market" in Alexandria, Maryland.

Isn't the internet amazing, I even found the guy who drew the sketch that became the logo......

 Car excitement over.... Though I can see how carrying ones passengers in the dicky-seat outside might be attractive to parents of squabbling kids...

The Brazos Star.

The little town of Chappell Hill has some nice old buildings, but it was not exactly buzzing with activity.

 

Quite a few buildings were apparently disused.

Something a little sinister, this gate should lead to the scary haunted mansion.

The bank actually has a notice on the door encouraging you to bring your gun along in.

I'm assuming that they're confident that they're better armed and have more firepower than any bad guys who might take up the offer.

Horticulture is popular here.

 

Get some very old oil for your very old car?

Nice cast iron seats

Pretty cast fence and gate.

Historic building,  I have trouble not laughing at the reverence shown toward nondescript structures that were built about last thursday, I confess, but to be fair, this was the edge of the known world, around then.

This plaque is more my flavour.

Hats, a Commodity Vital to Texas

Because I'm planning to go out for a beer with my pal, Ken, I'm a bit stuck for time, I'm working on a few long posts, full of pictures, but I thought I'd hurl these pictures into the aether for you folks, I know you all think I'm not working hard enough at this blogging. Truth is, I was up til 3 a.m. this morning, reviewing dense reams of paperwork for the U.S. Embassy in London, and booking rail tickets and a hotel, for next thursday, when I'm away to the big city for my K1 Visa medical. If you've not been there, you can't imagine just how complex the process is, and the embassy warns you, in no uncertain terms, that if you're deficient in one piece of paperwork, then it's turn around and go home, and wait another month. They have a little youtube video showing the hapless applicant who has failed to properly check the list of vital documents. The barbarian is always turned around at the moat. If I had known it would be so difficult to get permission to enter the United States, in order to marry a U.S.citizen, I'd have arranged to be born there. I'd certainly have started keeping an accurate journal and huge scrapbook of significant events and dates when I was sixteen, which is so long ago that I can barely remember who I was back then, let alone every place I lived, for over six months, and the dates I arrived and left. I can't remember the name of the guy who was my immediate supervisor in the job I had in 2001. Well, I do know he was called Chris, and someone told me he died a couple of years after I left. So I don't suppose he'd give me a reference anyway. I lived quite a few places since I was sixteen. More than many, less than some. Study and then work. I digress as usual. As I have to go out for a beer, I'll have to vaguely promise more text later. 

Texas. Old hats. 

And new hats, at High-Brehm Hats, New Braunfels, near San Antonio, Texas.

Here, you can buy yourself a new hat, or take your grand-daddy's hat in, to be cleaned, repaired, re-blocked, and fitted to your head. 

The best known names in Western hats are probably Stetson, and Resistol, who are, these days, both made in Garland, Texas by the same company.  They're not the only hatters in Texas though. There are a very few individuals left who still make made to measure, bespoke hats. 

Here in New Braunfels, we met one. And it may be that one day, I get a new hat from him.

I do wear a hat, the top of my head has less thatching than it did when I was sixteen, and I find it appreciates a little shelter from both the noonday sun and the cold and wet of winter. Mostly, I wear an Australian Barmah hat, not too dissimilar to a western hat, a narrower brim though. When the weather is really nasty, I wear a Rogue leather hat, made in Mpumalanga, South Africa. I've had that hat for fifteen years now, it's been submerged in mud and in sea water, it's been used as a makeshift water bowl for my dog, it's been driven over, stomped on, and somehow it just gets better. 

But it might look a bit out of place in Texas.

Raw hat blanks, felt awaiting steaming and blocking to shape.

The workshop.

Still simple sewing machines and hand-work.

We were made welcome, I'd actually come in to buy a pair of shoes, the  store sells shoes and workwear, the shoes I  really wanted were not in stock in my size, sadly, I'd have been happy to purchase here rather than at a possibly cheaper big outlet, because I believe in supporting real, traditional local businesses.

High-Brehm history link.

'Sugarfoot', and Bandera, Texas.

Back in the day.... When I was a little kid, we didn't want to be spiderman, or ironman or...

No, our heroes were cowboys. I was born in 1953, and my early years happened to be in something of a heyday for the westerns. By the time I was five or six, I had my collection of cowboy and indians figures,I had shiny 'Lone-Star' guns which shot caps,with a bang and a smell of gunsmoke. I had a black hat,with wide brim and sheriff's star,.  We hid behind haybales, and shot it out with the baddies, we ambushed stagecoaches, we rode the pony express through injun country. I was an equal-opportunity kid, I also had a feathered head-dress, a bow, and some arrows. 

We didn't have a television in our house,  but my grandparents did, and it was a treat to lie on the rug in northern england, and be transported into Texas, and adventure. There was Cheyenne, Bonanza.... Bronco Layne, Hopalong Cassidy, .................................................................and 'Sugarfoot'!

Imagine... The Red Dirt Girl and I were in the little Texas town of Bandera, ('Cowboy Capital of Texas'), and found this autograph, scratched in the concrete, outside the 'Dogleg Coffee House'.

I'll confess, it wasn't until some time later that I remembered 'Sugarfoot', the young would-be cowboy, who got into all sorts of scrapes, yet somehow always came out on top. But how cool is that? We're on our travels and I see a pavement signed by a guy who was a god to me, back when I was a fearless cowboy.

 

 

Bandera was fun, we were  made welcome in a little bar, and it was a pity we had a long way to go that night.