All Our Pomp of Yesterday, As One With Nineveh and Tyre! (part one)

Dear Juliet

You're just not going to believe this...

Anyway, it was nice to see Heathrow again. Not a lot of people say that, but I suppose for me it's like visiting Spacedock and Dear Miss Landau (DML) kickstarted a liking for aviation. My father also once told me that there's nothing, absolutely nothing, on Earth as exciting as an operational take-off and it all captures some essence of that time I stole the Enterprise...

I remember bringing her in on a wing and a prayer...

All for the best gal in all the world.

Sorry, got a bit emotional there...

So, first day in London and don't think I just forgot about you and enjoyed myself. It's like that bit of poetry on p. 148 of DML, the sort of thing sailors read in the long hours of the off-watches, thinking of the girl sitting by the shore while they themselves were far away at sea.

I hung about Parliament Square for a while, seeing if I could get the British government to collapse for you, but I'm afraid it all stayed peaceful. The odd burst of drizzle, cold blue skies otherwise...

I walked up Whitehall, came across a girl in a wheelchair near Trafalgar Square and asked her if she could get across the road safely. It turned out she was a fan of history and Buffy (particularly Dru), so I told her about the Book of Deer and she took a shot of DML. A good moment.

(The National Gallery)

Cold evening, though. I'm often preoccupied that, after a lifetime in L.A's Mediterranean climate, you'd suffer at this latitude.

Well, there's always a thermal vest...

Fine reintroduction to London, though; and as usual I was racking up the casualties. Four junior ministers resigned from government that day, probably while I was taking photographs in Parliament Square, five hundred yards away...

And on the 13th (a Wednesday, not a Friday), the luck, the luck!

This was my day off, taken to try and catch the heart of London's soul, and I sure did stumble upon something.

A trim and easy trip up the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road, caught these two images:

Then I thought I'd wander back down Whitehall, perhaps to see more government bloodletting and something of the State Opening of Parliament. The King and Queen had already gone in, the crowds had dispersed, they were due to return and I turned up just in time to see the Irish State Coach (complete with the Sovereigns) come back up Whitehall...

And I got the shot.

But that wasn't the only thing. I stand pretty tall, and I was able to look straight into the coach.

And just for a nanosecond, the King and I looked at each other.

Please don't ever think I'd go off like this, forget about you, leave you crying into your pillow and overdosing on Ben & Jerry's, because if there was one moment when I really really wished you were there (complete with thermal vest), that was it.

Rather than dance in the rain in Bridgnorth, I felt like going back to Trafalgar Square and stamping my feet. That great moment, and you could not be there to see it...

😢

Darn. I have to go to work. I'll have to do this in two halves. Part two should come in (possibly on a wing and a prayer) about four o'clock your time.

I really wish you'd been there.

Would you like a thermal vest?

Love,

James