And So To Home

 

All good things, bar heaven, come to an end and so did this exeat to London and the UK. A final trip to the all day breakfast on Grays Inn Rd, thanks PA, a foray to St. Albans, Holborn, and a few pints at the Lamb and the Rugby followed by a plate of carbonara at Ciao Bella on Lamb's Conduit Street. So tasty.

Then back to LHR, Terminal Three, a total nightmare, and onto a sardine can masquerading as an international flight. I tell you, getting the bus from Victoria to Chepstow in the 1980s was more dignified and comfortable, which isn't saying much.

some rando curry house onna Strand

10 hours later you're back home in the Texas Free State, and that felt good. There's an expansiveness and freedom to Texas which England just doesn't have. That said, it was heart-wrenching to leave the Old Country. Partly because it's my homeland, especially London, and also because of its great beauty and interest. Everywhere you look there's something to stay the eye.

Texas? Yes, the same, but here everything's new, right down to the newly pioneered land of the place, to say nothing of noxious strip malls and the appalling DFW metrosprawl we call a city. Still, good to be home in the free atmos of the Lone Star State. There's air to breathe.

Look, my olde flatte!

So what's the scoop, the story on the UK? Well, their government's imploding, coffee shops are ludicrously abounding, the Pound is hideously weakening, cigarettes are stupidly pricey as is petrol. Red Bull is cheap, wine is cheap too, but you can't afford to get a house unless you're stupid rich, and... everyone believes in the vaccines, big time.

"Oh, better run off and get my booster," says one quondam anarchist and off xe goes to burn incense on the Altar of Big Pharma Pfizer. Climate Change too; everyone's convinced the Ice Caps are gonna melt and flood Martha's Vineyard in a few years. Quelle serious disaster, go tell the Obamas.

Look, a meat market the asset strippers are about to shut down

So, globalist agitprop looms large over the Sceptred Isle though they'd call it common sense. Mask up, vax up and toe the NWO line of your elite overlords. That aside, all's normal except for all these ridiculous coffee shops, beer at 4.50 a pint++ and hordes of electric bicycles and scooters in London. Oh, and it's getting hard to pay with cash.

Cash, gentle readers, is being phased out in England. What could possibly go wrong.

Your Expat Pal,

LSP

Clubbing

 

So what do you do in central London? Many things, but I like to go clubbing, this time 'round the good old National Liberal Club, No. 1 Whitehall. So, pull on a blazer, straighten your tie, wrestle with annoying but cool miniature shotgun shell cufflinks, give those loafers a brush and head off, it's not far.

Pass through Russell Square and admire the British Museum without going in, then take a left on Museum Street and go south, myriad memories. Then, as if by instinct, perhaps it is, muscle memory, you find yourself on the Strand.

Cut down Villiers Street and rushing masses of people getting off work. They're heading for home via Charing Cross, going to a pub or some kind of restaurant or all three, but you're going to the club. That in mind, take a right on the Embankment and stroll far from the madding crowd to Gladstone's 1882 setup overlooking the Thames and Embankment Gardens.

Walk through that storied portico and there you are. "Good evening," says someone at the door and you offer a sunny hello as you head to the bar. And there it is and there they are, the Nat Libs, having fun in a stunningly beautiful Victorian interior, some say the best in London, right there in the heart of the city.

The bar's congenial, the Terrace is great and the dining room's lovely. The Smoking Room's perfect too, except for the annoying fact that you're not allowed to smoke in it, but you can smoke on the Terrace, so all's not lost.

After a few drinks at the bar, head across the room for dinner. It's not bad and the club's proud of their chef, though I thought it a bit fixy. More trad club staples, please, and less Frenchifying. Still, a minor complaint and the company was good. A retired Colonel, a shooting salesman, several entertaining people from Ireland, think Parnell, and a retired civil servant with an interest in late antiquity. Far out, we talked Theodoric, Belisarius, #2A, Ireland and Army. Nice.

Eclectic and you can imagine the conversation at the table, also imagine that I was on my very best behavior. Well, it's hard not to be when you're sitting under life sized portraits of Gladstone. Dinner over, retire to the bar, chat with friends and then head home to Mecklenbugh Square, a good time had by all.

What a lot of fun and yet again haunted by ghosts and memories. Of my Father, who was a member, Gladstone himself and the Empire on which the sun never set. Today, this club's mostly for socializing and finding a place to relax in the midst of the rush of the city, but it was once a political powerhouse. And that's just it, was once.

Go there if you can, it has great reciprocal rights.

By Gladstone's Axe,

LSP

Some London Churches

 

London isn't just about pubs, whether in Tower Hill, Soho, Marleybone, Fleet Street or anywhere else, it's also about churches, and I took the time to visit a few. Corpus Christi Maiden Lane, just off Covent Garden, stood out. A beautiful catholic church, full of the beauty and sense of holiness.

As soon as you enter this hidden away gem of a church you're struck by the hushed reverence of the place, a haven from the secular rush outside. You'll note Corpus Christi doesn't have a knave altar. I lit a candle and prayed.

Corpus Christi

St. Mary le Strand is Church of England and stands on the Strand opposite King's College, it's an architectural masterpiece designed by James Gibbs, replacing an earlier church which was demolished in 1549 to make way for Somerset House. The new St. Mary's was consecrated in 1724 and, curiously, I'd never been inside, despite walking by it daily while at King's. What was it like?

St. Mary le Strand

Stately and perhaps intimate English Baroque, a very medium sized congregation would feel at home in the nave. Was there a sense of the numinous, the holy within? Not compared to Corpus Christi and perhaps that was because of the Vicar holding some kind of planning meeting, under the pulpit. There they were, planning away. Still, a beautiful church and a haven from the rush of the Strand.

St. Bride's

Walk a few minutes east to Fleet Street Street and St. Bride's, the journalist's church. I'd never been there before, oddly, and was somehow moved by the calmness of the place, its sense of reverence, and lit a candle. After visiting the church you can visit a pub, the Old Bell, built by Christopher Wren and pleasantly unspoiled.

St. Anselm & St. Cecilia's

Heading back west, walk north up the Kingsway to St. Anselm and St. Cecilia's, a Roman Catholic church and yet another shelter from the storm of people rushing, in this case, into the vastly expanded maw of LSE (London School of Economics). It's an austere, simple church and I prefer Corpus Christi, still, Christ is most definitely present

Then return to your set up on the Strand via Lincoln's Inn, get ready to meet old friends and wonder at the sheer number of churches in this small section of the city, the above's just a snapshot. 

They weren't built from a lack of faith, may that return again.

God bless,

LSP