London Calling

This is not the term to be heading backwards and forwards between London and Cambridge, but nonetheless, that's what I seem to be finding myself doing and I spent the weekend just gone in our illustrious capital city. And a busy weekend it was too.

I made the decision on Friday night to get up ridiculously early on the Saturday, to catch the 06:45 train down to London to go to a bakery in Islington for what the Guardian recently said was the 'best breakfast in Britain'. It was part-established by Dan Lepard (the baker whose internet forum led to the bread baking weekend I spent with a group of 15 or so other like-minded people in Bethesda in Wales last summer). So off I trotted through Islington, past estate agents advertising places at an average of around £750,000 to pay just a bit less than that for breakfast. The French cinnamon brioche toast with Greek yoghurt and berry compote was indeed very good, but at £10, I'm not sure whether it was the best value in Britain.

There's much more of that to be had in Borough Market, a place that really proves that the saying 'you can have too much of a good thing' is just plain wrong. I can't pontificate enough about how much I love this place, so I won't even try. But suffice to say, walking around so many tempting things, I was sorely regretting my Islington breakfast. If there's one thing to be said for living in London next year, Borough Market is probably it.

Afterwards I had to visit Westminster to deliver something to Cecily's parents before meeting Lisa for a much too long a delayed catch-up lunch in the coffee place opposite the Royal Courts of Justice. I then spent the next three hours at a talk on postgraduate study in the USA at King's College London before meeting Stef and Stuart for something I'd been looking forward to since my last visit.


Queen's Day! Last year on the same day in Holland the whole country turned Orange and came out for one big street party to celebrate the Dutch Queen Mother's birthday and to my amazement last time I was in London I noticed that the Dutch Tourism Board was putting on an event for the day on the South Bank in London! Cue the chance to get all nostalgic over stroopwafeln and olliebollen, and to have a photo taken wearing 'Dutch' hats. All very good fun, and I even got to speak some Dutch, but alas, despite my supreme effort of enunciation, the addressees of my Dutch words replied in English.

Day two in the city saw another delayed reunion with some friends from back home, who are no longer back home.


Jon had recovered from his epic cycle ride to Cambridge from Norwich last weekend. Jess had just returned from a six-month trip to the other side of the world, and Will now works in London. So we spent the day stomping around London and generally catching-up on our lives. It's always quite fortunate that wherever you seem to end up in London, something worth seeing generally presents itself, and Sunday was no exception. A sedate walk through St. James Park became slightly less so when a parade came by:



Sadly the weather wasn't quite as keen to play along as it was on Saturday, but it was a really fun day nonetheless and it was great to see everyone again over the course of the weekend and to get away from the Cambridge bubble, which, this term at least, seems to be building in internal pressure.

But perhaps more importantly than anything, it provided an opportunity to see presumably the next stage in green car technology.


I guess this one doesn't have to pay the Congestion Charge.

Edit: Dan Lepard has let me know that he wasn't actually involved with the establishment of Ottolenghi (the bakery I visited in Islington), but that instead he helped out with their bread baking after they were established. So I'm more than happy to clarify that.

What was the day that was?

Wednesday of last week was St. George's Day. But you'd never have known it. The flag outside my window was showing about as little enthusiasm for the day as the rest of the country appeared to be feeling.


When I had my interview with the English Speaking Union to spend the summer interning on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, one of the aspects of the questioning was how I'd be an ambassador for the UK. I mentioned that I'd like to portray the best aspects of the country to those I met. Predictably (although I hadn't appreciated that when I gave my previous answer), the next question was what I thought the best thing about Britain was. I fumbled, and never quite found the right words to describe what I wanted to pin down. As soon as I left the room I figure it out; British reserve. Regardless of whether people feel more 'English', 'Scottish', 'British' or even 'Cornish' there's a lot to be proud of in this country, but we don't shout about it. Perhaps we don't feel the need, or perhaps we're embarrassed to do so.

Just compare our 'celebrations' on St. George's Day with the celebrations in America on Independence Day. Of course, modesty should only go so far, and despite thinking that we've got a lot to be proud of in our British reserve, we've got a lot to be proud of in our country to, and we shouldn't be afraid to recognise that - even if for only one day a year.

A long way from home

Today's trendy trend is to 'Go Green!' whereby you're saving the planet through, for instance, counting your food's carbon footprint, or working in darkness. Some people though go even further than this in the name of saving the world.

This weekend, Jon, a good friend of mine from back in Penzance really went one further. Not content with all the usual methods of transport he determined that he'd come to Cambridge, from Norwich, on his bike. Not a motorbike, but a bicycle. 75-odd miles on a bicycle. Again; that's 75-odd miles. On a bicycle. Yes, it's pretty flat, but still, 75-odd miles. Madness.


Granted, I think it was more in the name of saving money than the world, and I'm not sure how many tonnes of carbon-dioxide he saved, nor how many calories he burned off, but whatever the final count, undeniably it was a pretty amazing effort. It took him just over 7 hours to cover the distance. But perhaps most amazing of all was that he could still walk yesterday evening and today.

I've been back at Cambridge for three-weeks now, not that it really feels like it, but most of the time has been spent in the library reading this and that, and understanding this but not that. So it was good to be able to take a complete break from things and have at least part of the weekend off from this studying lark.

After a well-deserved, and personally much-missed, Cornish pasty on Saturday for lunch we spent the rest of the day wondering around Cambridge before coming back to cook dinner and spending the evening playing pool and indulging in a bit of Nintendo Wii action. I learned the hard way that it's quite depressing to be beaten, at midnight, at Wii Tennis, by someone who got up at 6am and cycled 75 miles earlier in the same day. Today saw a further wander as a build up to the (in)famous Selwyn brunch, some real-life bowling (where needless to say, I was again beaten), before Jon took the train back to Norwich. No more cycling today.

It's odd how it's tempting to divide friends into 'Uni-Friends' and 'Home-Friends', as after all, aren't they essentially the same? Supposedly the friends we make at University are the friends we'll have for the rest of our lives, and I certainly don't doubt that. When you're living around people for three years you really do get to know people on a different level to the way you knew people in school. Jon on the other hand is certainly a home friend, but I've known him since I was 11, and a further 11 years since must count for something. The same goes for other friends from home. At the end of the day I think the University versus Home friends thing is a false dichotomy. Friendships aren't about geography. It doesn't matter how, or where, or when you know someone. What really matters is why you know them.

"Just like London town"

Day's where I have to get up at 6:30am rarely go well. There's something about the lack of good mood that invariably greets me in the morning on such occasions that just seems to carry on through the whole day. But fortunately today turned out to be something of an exception.

After dragging myself out of bed and making myself look as presentable as I can with the materials I have to work with, I walked the 35 minute journey to the train station, baulked at having to pay £39 for a peak-day travelcard, before remembering that I was being reimbursed, and boarded a train to London. One hour later I arrived into King's Cross and walked to Chancery Lane. There can be few other places in London whose mention evokes an emotional response in lawyers on the same level that Chancery Lane does. Which is a bit odd as it's actually quite a pokey street in a perpetual state of building works. It's a bit like there being no Muffin Man shop on Drury Lane (seriously; why hasn't anyone done that?). But nonetheless, today I had an interview on Chancery Lane for a (legal) job for next year. I should find out how it went in two or three weeks, or rather, my Dad will, as all my post seems to be going home at the moment, so that'll be a fun phone call for him to have to make.

After it was over I took the opportunity to make the most of the not-my £39 and traipse around London for the rest of the day. I've lost track of where I actually walked, but the blister on my left foot, and the wearing through of the sock on my right testify that I covered a few miles at least. I eventually ended up at St. Paul's and crossed over the now not wobbly bridge to the Southbank. I was trying to think of what image sprung to mind when I thought of 'London', when I noticed a small gathering of about 50 people looking into the area where the skateboarders usually skate. Sneaking a closer look I saw the back of a music band being filmed by the BBC for a new programme called 'Sound'. Upon moving up the queue I realised thatwho they were:


The Feeling were in town, and fittingly enough, they were singing 'Just like London town'. Or rather, they were singing it over and over so the BBC could get their shots in. If anything it was surprising how few people there were watching. I don't really follow music, but judging by how often the song is played on the radio they seem to be quite a big thing, and so many people were just walking by. Apparently the show will be on the TV on Saturday, so tune in and see if you can spot me being told off by the producer for not turning my flash off.


Afterwards I trotted onwards along the Southbank past a proper image of London in the London Eye, and over the bridge to Parliament Square as there was something I wanted to see.


I've been reading quite a bit about Oliver Cromwell recently for one of my courses this year, and I just can't quire figure him out, and nor it seems can quite a few people. Many people abhor him. His actions in Ireland and Scotland were inexcusable. Some see him as a fascist despot, but the more I read, the more I see a man who, despite going against everything in British constitutionalism, was committed, in England at least, to achieving 'right' for the nation after the mess of Charles I, and who was crestfallen when he didn't succeed in his ideal. Surely a despot would have seized the Crown when it was offered to him? But of course, my perspective is entirely from the view of legal history and I don't seek to condone. Socially or politically the picture could be, and probably is, very different indeed. His legacy is hard to determine, shortly after he died the Monarchy was reinstated and he was posthumously executed (his head is now buried at Sidney Sussex after being separated from his body 300 odd years ago). It's perhaps ironic that his anti-monarchist approach has led to the strong passive Monarch that we enjoy today. But however history judges him, it's interesting to note that his statue stands inside the grounds of the Palace of Westminster itself, while notably others are consigned to the square opposite.

That's probably the image I have in my head when I think of 'London' - the home of so much that I associate with being British. London is history.

I was walking on the grass one day

Or rather, she was. It's one of the hallowed rules here that we're forbidden from walking on the courtyard's grass - there are polite, yet firm, signs reminding us at practically every turn. But every so often, the rules are relaxed and people can indulge the pent up desire to trample across the lawn.


Admittedly, getting married in the College chapel is probably quite an extreme way of getting around the general prohibition, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. And being able to walk across the grass gave them all a useful shortcut to shelter when, unfortunately, it proceeded to rain about two minutes after I snapped the photos.

I think I'll just have to wait until graduation to get my dose of stomping in.