Walls

Last Saturday we visited London with two objectives in mind: go and see the jigsaw Foppa and go and see the Eros snowstorm, a snow storm being one of those glass balls containing a famous building, a lot of white flakes and filled with water (or some other colourless fluid): you invert to get the snow storm.

As it turned out the first snow storm was a pedal driven affair outside the Festival Hall. The thing came equipped with a variety of contraptions which one could turn or pedal to generate the storm, but we did not do very well, only managing a flurry rather than a storm. I guess we needed more helpers.

On to Trafalgar Square to find that the rather feeble glass box which had contained a rather feeble Christmas Crib had gone missing and we assumed that it had been removed to make way for New Year celebrations. But, later, when we got to Eros and learned that his glass ball had been burst by the high winds and had had to be dismantled, we thought that perhaps the crib had been blown away. It was certainly of a size and shape to catch the wind.

I observe in passing that while the Christmas tree itself in the Square was rather splendid, the decoration was not. As feeble as the crib. What is wrong with the Square Decoration Committee? They have a whole year to plan in.

After Eros we came across the rather shocking replica of the Peace Wall which has been put up to separate Israeli land from Palestinian land, or at least what is left of this last. But while being shocked, we also learned that suicide attacks on Israelis had fallen from hundreds to tens, presumably in a year, since its erection. So who knows what is to be done - but whatever that is, it is clearly going to be a long haul. The wall is to be seen, with an accompanying exhibition, for just a few more days at St. James, Piccadilly. The name church for that famous area for clubs (and other facilities) for gentlemen (and footballers).

Closed the outing with a Christmas pilgrimage to Berry Bros. (http://www.bbr.com/) where we bought a fine bottle of Silberberg de Rorschwihr Riesling from Rolly Gassmann. According to the Professor '[these] wines are small masterpieces with very good definition'.

Closing observation: the newish office building where I used to work in Allington Street and from which I had a fine view of a rather unusual lingerie shop in Buckingham Palace Road, now appears to have vanished into some huge building site.