More Travel

We are just back from another 2 week visit to London and vicinity.  While I had expected to be in Vienna in October, I gladly settled for London in late August and early September.  One of the reasons for the early travel (it was still high tourist season when we arrived) was because a film of Deb's was showing at a film festival that she has always wanted to visit.  The Women Over 50 had selected a film of hers for the fifth time, so we finally made the journey to Lewes to experience the event.  We had visited The Depot Cinema informally in May.  Deb came home with a runner up certificate for She Makes a Moving Picture, which received high praise from the judges.  The festival was a full one day affair, divided into blocks.  I attended the first block, where Deb's film screened, then literally headed into the hills for some spectacular downs walking.  Deb spent the entire day at the festival.

 

Another reason for our London trip was to continue our walking segments of the London Loop and the Capital Ring.  As in May, we completed one Loop segment and two Ring segments.  While only two Ring segments remain to complete, we still have four more of the longer Loop segments to do.  We also increased our cultural doings quite a bit this time, after a very slack attempt last May.  We visited the National Gallery, Apsley House, Courthauld Gallery, Guildhall, Temple and three Roman ruins within London.  In Eynsford we visited a Roman ruin and a castle ruin, while in Lewes I visited the ruins of a large priory.  We even saw several Banksy works of art, one of them in situ still and the others on pub walls.  Of course we managed to squeeze in a few pub visits as well, even discovering a new fabulous oasis for craft real ales.  

 

It was an exhausting trip with no days off, though a few times we returned early to the hotel for a quiet evening lying on a bed, feeling our feet tingling from much walking.  We flew with Air Canada from Windsor, leaving on a Wednesday and returning exactly two weeks later.  All flights went well except our final journey home from Toronto to Windsor, which ran just over two hours late.  Our final day was a 22 hour marathon of a very long bus ride and the two flights home.  Much more about the trip will be forthcoming over the next two weeks on the Travels Abroad blog, link in upper left margin.  We managed to meet with Caroline once; our second visit was cancelled due to bad weather and some transport problems for Caroline.

 

First photo of the trip, as we set out from Highgate on segment 12 of the Capital Ring.  Sadly we never got to try the whiskey.  This billboard was on the side of the Boogaloo Pub (not visited).

 

There are hardly any red box telephones remaining in London.  These are set up as an art display outside Smithfields Market. 

 

One of our relaxing evenings at the hotel we managed to watch a Criterion movie offering via Deb's phone and tablet.  She made it magically appear on the hotel TV and we lay in bed and watched the remarkable Ashes and Diamonds, a Polish film from 1958 directed by Andrzej Wadja.  Somehow,this masterpiece had slipped past us until now.  It is a totally amazing film from start to finish, with many moments of brilliance and genius.  The plot has to do with the assassination attempt on a pro-Russian (communist) speaker coming to a small town to try and convince the workers to join the communist party.  Opposition party members first fail in their attempt, killing two innocent men instead by mistake.  The film has plenty of tension and release, as the main assassin character falls in love with a barmaid at his hotel and nearly pulls out of the attempt.  This is a riveting film from start to finish, with superb writing and excellent photography supporting the good acting.  Highly recommended!

 

Now showing on Criterion.  The poster is a tribute to the film's best shot,

an upside down Christ on the cross.  

 

Thursday night, amidst loads of laundry, we watched an oddball film, deemed a "sunshine noir" by Criterion.  Violent Saturday is a 1955 film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin and several other recognizable character actors.  The action takes place in a small Arizona town (filmed in Bisbee, AZ, a place we have visited a few times).  The film is ostensibly about a bank heist to be undertaken by three out-of-town criminals, but it also partly a Douglas Sirk melodrama about various inhabitants of the mining town.  So, a film that is a cross between a soap opera and crime drama.  Results are mixed, but as it is filmed in Cinemascope with De Luxe colour, the film is always great to watch.  Mature plays the hero who stands up to the criminals, getting shot himself and rescued at the last moment by Borgnine, who plays a pitchfork wielding peace loving Amish farmer who is pushed over the edge by the criminals.  He gets no credit at the end for his heroic and life saving action.  Definitely worth watching, especially on a 50" TV screen in a small room.

 

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

I'll be back with trip updates soon.  Check back in a few days.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 
 

 

 

Winter Shows Its Face

It's coming. It seems to arrive each and every year.  We have had a rather pleasant autumn, if you discount the fact that we have had no rain.  This year our first glimpse of what is to come will begin arriving Sunday, and by Monday and Tuesday it will be cold.  The weather change coincides with the next astronomy session, so it will be too cold to stand in an open field with my telescope.  I had a rather splendid observing month in October, however, and made it out on five separate nights.  Even so I'd like to get out three more times before winter, so I hope the temps get seasonal again later next week.

 

I've been rereading my journals from all my previous visits to London.  The first thing that strikes me is how much energy we had back in the day.  During our March Break from teaching we would have a full day of museums, walking, pubs and navigating transport, followed by an evening concert, then at least one other pub before beginning the long trek back to our abode.  And right back at it next day, six or seven days in a row.  This is while many of our colleagues were lying around on warm and sunny beaches, blinking in the sunlight.  The weather in London was frequently cold and damp.  But what fun we had, getting to know another great city in such detail (Detroit being the other one).  We hope to return soon.  Here are some pics from our 2007 visit.

 

Outside Kensington Tube Station.

 

A London tourist shop.

 

Deb climbs stairs at Bayswater Tube station.

 

British Museum.

 

One of many pub stops during our week in London.  Rather cozy, no?

 

Downtown Shere, on a day trip away from London

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Portobello Road, London.  Market day. 

 

In local travel news, my mother is coming to visit next week!  She will arrive Tuesday and stay until Thursday morning.  She will arrive with her sister, my Aunt Pauline, courtesy of Cathy, Pauline's daughter and my cousin.  They will stay at a small hotel in downtown Amherstburg, about 7 minutes from our house.  There won't be too much on the agenda, except lots of sitting and talking, with perhaps a visit to a local winery or three.  Needless to say that our house will get a good cleaning beforehand.

 

In movie news there are a few to report.  Hitchcock's 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much is well worth seeing again, and of course Criterion has a pristine and restored print.  After watching the film again about a kidnapped young girl and the parents trying to do the right thing, we were treated to a 17' discourse by Guillermo del Toro, who has done this sort of thing for a number of his favourite films showing on Criterion.  Peter Lorre is terrific as the evil mastermind, who fights to the bitter end to carry out his assassination plot.  The final scene, a shoot out between police and bad guys, goes on and on and on, but is a great ending to the film.  Often these events last very briefly, or revert to negotiations.  Not this one!  Band bang bang till the end.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

Another film we hadn't seen in decades was All The President's Men, a 1976 film starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as two newspaper men who end up bringing down Nixon as a result of the Watergate break-in, an assault by Republicans to infiltrate and wire tap Democrat headquarters in Washington.  Directed by Alan J. Pakula, the film is mostly talking.  However, the pacing is fast and the tension builds as the two men get closer and closer to the truth.  The real star here is how the workings of the press are revealed, a pretty much all-boys club of reporters and editors.  This is a don't miss film, though the ending is abrupt, possibly due to cost overruns.

 

Leaving Criterion Nov. 30th. 

 

Lastly comes Hitchcock's 1926 The Lodger.  While the story is weak (everyone seems so amazingly stupid in this silent movie) the photography is quite good, evoking German Expressionism with its shadows, odd angles and claustrophobic atmosphere.  The legendary London fog is in abundance, as are the killings.  One would think that after the 8th Tuesday night killing in a row of a blonde woman that blonde women would not go out alone at night.  Alas, but they do.  Truly blonde in all things, perhaps?  Joe the detective is as thick as a brick, and super jealous besides.  The lodger of the title is nearly as dumb as everyone else, keeping his secret until it is too late.  Why was it a secret, anyway?  At least the cliche of having the blonde heroine menaced by the serial killer is avoided, and a happy ending does ensue (except for all those blonde women).  Not one of the great silent films, but watched a lot because of who made it.  Beautifully restored and showing on Criterion.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

Mapman Mike