Fitflops – shoes Vivienne Westwood would like

Vivienne Westwood said recently (not to me personally, of course, but as reported in the newspaper) that Brits dress too dully. Vivienne would say that, wouldn't she, given her outrageous outfits. But I agree: not enough colour, not enough fun. Like when grey was the new black, and then black was the new black. It's getting better these days, though, as attested when the Marni brand at H&M sold out on March 8th. That night, the Evening Standard's Fashion Editor Karen Dacre wrote that Marni is distinguished by its "conceptualised prints, kooky colour palette, and unconventional approach to silhouette...bold prints, geometric patterns and textured fabrics".

Fitflop trainers in leopard print

Bold. I was emboldened myself by Vivienne's opinion so much that I bought a pair of Bronze Leopard Print trainers (called 'supersneakers') on sale, of course, at a 60% discount – not at H&M but online at Fitflop's website. Not that I was enamoured by the print (they are far enough away from the eyes as to be inconspicious enough), but Fitflops are indeed a dream fit. I first ran into Fitflops in a Stateside shoe store where one pair of tall boots was on display. I liked their looks immediately and tried them on. In seven seconds I had made my decision to buy, helped by the fact that they were also on sale – at a 75% discount!


The tags that came with the boots describe the Fitflop fit: they have special soles that correct posture and exercise the leg at the same time. The selling point for me was that these soles are extra thick and squishy, which means a comfortable cushion to walk on. These were engineered by a team of academics, Dr. David Cook and Darren James, at the Centre for Human Performance, London South Bank University. Their new Microwobbleboard^TM technology increases "the time your muscles are engaged every single time you take a step." They claim that "Fitflop footwear wearers have reported relief from plantar fascitis, heel pain, chronic back pain, sciatica, osteoarthritis...restless leg syndrome, scoliosis, degenerative disc disease and lower leg swelling, as well as improved posture, increased energy, firmness and muscle tone." Whether they'll work for you – well, you'll just have to try them and see. I love mine!

'Morning Doves' Duo

The 'Morning Doves' at the
Shakespeare's Head, Islington

Two young women are making the rounds of pubs and clubs in London, singing guitar-accompanied harmony in beautiful, interesting voices. They visited the Shakespeare's Head in Islington Sunday night and sang a couple of songs in the Old Timey music session. I asked if they were singing professionally and they said they're just starting out, calling themselves the Morning Doves. This is a duo to keep your eyes and ears out for!

I should have asked them more questions about who they are because when I got home to google them, I couldn't find them anywhere online (definitely spelling themselves 'morning', not 'mourning'). If anyone has more information, please let me know!

The Hajj exhibition at the British Musem

One of the perks of being a Friend of the British Museum is getting to see special exhibitions for free. We took advantage of this to see the current exhibition on the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). It was a great exhibition in many ways: lots of panel explanations to set items in historical context, both objects and documents on exhibit, testimonials from British people who have accomplished the Hajj, and an interesting geographical approach that led one through the main pilgrimage routes to Mecca – from the rest of Arabia and the Middle East, from eastern Eurasia/Indonesia, and of course Britain.

I was particularly impressed by the aerial photographs and aerial video of Al Haram, the "mosque" containing the Kaaba, the holiest shrine of Islam. First, contrary to our usual visual impressions of mosques, this one is a huge flat building surrounding an open courtyard in whose center sits the Kaaba. Second, circumambulation (7 times counter-clockwise) takes place not only in the courtyard around the Kaaba but on the flat roofed building surrounding it. Third, the video does time-lapse photography that shows circumambulation as a galactic spiral, much like the opening part of the YouTube video of a new vision for Al Haram in 2020.

However, visiting this exhibit in particular, I realize the dire need for a new dedicated temporary exhibition room at the British Museum. The current ones are held in the old Reading Room of the Museum, under the central dome. The walls are still lined with leather-bound books from floor to ceiling, but for the Hajj exhibition an internal wall was built in front of the library wall. This meant that upon entry, one had to squeeze along a passageway between the books and that internal wall before making one's way up an temporary internal staircase to access the elevated exhibit floor. All very jury-rigged and artificial. But once there, the Reading Room dome made for an appropriate ceiling, giving the feeling one was in a mosque oneself.

British Museum extension work on Montague Place with
construction site office placed over the street!

The new exhibit room is in the making! At the northwest corner of the Museum, construction is going on that will provide temporary exhibition space in a dedicated room, together with multitudes of space for artefact conservation and scientific analyses, object storage and study rooms, as well as biodiversity and sustainability (i.e. plants on the roof). You can follow the construction (due to be completed at the end of 2013) on the BM's* New Centre website.

* As an American, I always have trouble referring to the British Museum by its initials. But that's the way it's done here! Sorry, folks....

Sessions at two Shakespeare pubs

I've heard "The Swan" is the most popular name for a pub, but there are a lot of Shakespeares around, too. We've just been to a session at The Shakespeare's Head, across from Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Nice old timey American session populated by seven geezers, two young men, a lad and two beautiful women (myself included, of course...but which category?). Or another way to look at it: 5 guitars, 2 mandolins, 2 fiddles, 2 banjos, 1 mouth harp and spoons. Unfortunately pennywhistles aren't allowed to accompany American old timey – only if an Irish tune is played.

American Old Timey Session at the Shakespeare's Head,
1 Arlington Way, Islington, London
Sessions every Sunday night from 8pm

The session was open and welcoming, both to newcomers and to those with less experience, shall we say. But as I learned from another American session at the Blue Lion pub on Gray's Inn Road, London, last Wednesday (why is it Gray when the English spelling is 'grey'?), the session etiquette is different from an Irish session, as at The Shakespeare Tavern in Durham.

In an American session, the session boss calls out for people to start a tune, or even goes around the circle for different people to start a tune, and they often name it first. At an Irish session, whoever wants just digs in and everyone follows without naming the tune. Again, an American tune is played by itself but several times, whereas Irish tunes are played two or three times in sets of three, usually. In an Irish session, the session boss often calls out the change of tunes, either just by yelling "Change!" or stating the key in which the new tune has to be played; then at the end, they might yell "Out". But in an American session, there is no changing tunes and 'Out' is often indicated by a raised foot – not unknown in Irish/English sessions. Gotta keep a watch out there. Finally, there is more singing in an American session, which raises the problem  of whether one tries to sing with an old timey American accent/voice (some English do it surprisingly well; others don't...).

Irish/English session at The Shakespeare Tavern
63 Saddler Street, Durham
Sessions on 1st & 3rd Wednesdays from about 8.30pm

Not only is the way the session run different but so is the drinking. At the American sessions (on a sample of two), everyone buys their own drinks, no questions asked (this is very American – every man, woman, and child for themself). But in an Irish/English session, a person who wants to renew their drink usually asks around if anyone else wants one, too (or maybe this is just in the north). It can get very expensive, buying rounds, and I know people who have managed their entire music career sloping off when it's their turn to buy a round but always being there to receive a drink. And if you don't drink beer (but only one rum & coke or Baileys rather than three pints a night), it's really hard to participate in buying rounds because of the scorn of the beer drinkers.

Wyvern Street Art

This is not graffiti! It is the logo of the Wyvern Bindery painted on the shop shutters. The only way you will see it is to visit the bindery when it is closed! When open, the shop can be identified by its shop sign exhibiting equivalent talent.

Hand-made sign, hand-painted logo – a real labor of love and entrepeneurship characteristic of old Clerkenwell Road, London. It is here that watchmakers and printers made Clerkenwell famous, and now the area is the "largest media hub in Europe with, arguably, the greatest concentration of architects' and designers' offices in the world", according to Spotlight on Clerkenwell.

I was so curious as to what lay behind this shop shutter that I went in today. Blimey! It was like stepping into the past. Stacks of paper, rolls of leather, patterned inner binding, spools of binding ribbon, bound and unbound books on every surface, and in prime location, three old screw compression book presses. I thought the shop might date from the 1800s, but in fact, it has been in business only 21 years. On the shelf behind the till were rows of reference books, including one on "Japanese Bookbinding" (Weatherhill, 1986). Serious craftspeople, here.

If anyone needs their dissertation bound, they do it in two days. Much more fun to go there to have it done than at austere and sterile Prontaprint or the likes.

Sunday Brunch at St. ALi (now Workshop Coffee)

STOP PRESS! St. ALi has been renamed Workshop Coffee, due to its new management and independence from the Melbourne shop. Far less lyrical, I think...

Now Redundant: St. ALi. No, your eyes do not deceive. There is a full stop (period) after the 'sint'* and the L is capitalized in ALi – at least on their website it is. These are two clues that it is not English: in fact, it is an offspring of a coffeebar of the same name in South Melbourne, Australia, and the name was chosen to honor the Sufi mystic Ali ibn Umar al-Shadhili.

We heard of it through Aussie friends and immediately went out for Sunday brunch. Crowded! The queue didn't let up until 3pm, though we got a table at 2.35 after waiting 10 minutes or so. It calls itself a coffeebar and cafe, having recently opened in April 2011 and only doing business 7am~6pm seven days a week. Apparently they will be starting a dinner service soon.

The central coffee bar at St. ALi, with tables on two floors,
some available for reservation during weekdays

Already St. ALi has been named a runner-up in the Allegra Coffee Symposium awards (2011) as one of the best independent cafes in Europe, despite its Aussie affiliation. The reviews for the Melbourne branch are increasingly disillusioned, but this one, near the intersection of Clerkenwell Road and St John Street, is really flying: listed high in the Independent "Best British Breakfasts", and called "a great day-time cafe" by TimeOut magazine.

We were very impressed with the service: quick and compassionate. The food was imaginative and tasty, and the interior of the cafe was fascinating. In the back stands their own coffee bean roaster, so all the coffee you drink there has been roasted on site, hopefully very recently. The wall behind the roaster has been made into a vertical garden, much like the one I reported on for Edgware Road Station.** This one, however, is inside and includes a water moat and water-loving plants such as ferns. Very lush and supposedly pumping out good oxygen for us.

Despite the change of name noted above, the coffee is still spectacular and the food delicious...

* as discussed in my blog on St Bart's.
** see also the hanging garden in Madrid!

Edwardian experience in Edgware Road station, London

The Edgware Road station of the Bakerloo Line takes one back in time to the early 1900s. It has the iconic facade of several of the London underground stations: arched entryways faced in red tiles, designed by Leslie Green. While Londoners and visitors are well acquainted with these outer facades, I was astonished recently to pay my first visit to Edgware Road station and find that the interior of this one is virtually unchanged from its inception in 1907.

Tile-surround ticket windows of the Edgware Road station,
Bakerloo Line

The ticket windows are surrounded by moulded curved green tiles, complementing the red exterior. Since Green was responsible for the outer appearances of the original stations, and since Russell Square station still retains his geometric tile pattern on the platform walls, I assume the Edgware windows are of his conception as well. The overhanging ticket booth lights follow the curvatures of the windows and give the station an elegance unseen in modernized ticket halls.

Edgware Road station wall, Bakerloo Line, London
(colours saturated for effect)

The Edgware Road station used to be buttressed by a series of shops to the south, but these were destroyed to build the Marylebone Flyover. With nothing on its south side now but an empty space, landscape artists have taken a hand in adding value and decoration to a corner of the urban jungle. The station wall now sports a vertical garden of many different climbing plants, softening the racket of the passing traffic.

One of the reasons traffic is so bad in London (despite the Congestion Charge areas) is that more elevated highways are not allowed. When one visits this corner of Edgware Road and the Marylebone Flyover, sympathy flows for this decision. We will continue to drive gratefully along the city streets, taking two hours sometimes to get out of London, as we remember this corner and that decision.

Geology Lectures at the Geological Society of London

For the past two years, Shell oil company has sponsored monthly talks at the Geological Society of London. These are open to the public and deal with many topics of current interest. Past titles have included:
"Icelandic volcanoes, interactions between volcanoes, ice and atmosphere"
"Challenged by carbon: geologists, the oil industry and climate change"
"A mole in London: tunnelling beneath the city for major transport and infrastructure projects"
"The Anthropocene: living in a new age"
"Returning carbon to nature: the geology of carbon capture and storage"

Wednesday's talk was on "Paleogene climate conundrums", looking at the a previous instance of rapid climate warming at the Paleocene/Eocene (PE) boundary. Dubbed the PETM (thermal maximum), the climate at that time (between 50-52 million years ago) resulted in a temperature rise of 5°C at high latitudes due to injection of massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Included in the lecture were fossils of a 15-metre long snake that weighed 3 tons, which would have needed a minimum of 30°C climate to grow that large. The PETM is being studied for comparison with our current global warming, with the conclusion that the rate of carbon dioxide addition to the atmosphere is much faster today, disallowing time for the ocean to act as a buffer by absorbing extra carbon. Thus, it was implied that whatever happened then will happen faster and perhaps more extremely now.

Talks for the rest of this calendar year are:
19 October "Earth's atmosphere trapped in ice: 800,000 years of climate change"
16 November "New hydrocarbon development challenges and the impact on geoscience research"
14 December "Mineral deposits and their global strategic supply"

Reserve a seat by contacting The Geological Society
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG
Tel +44 (0)20-7434-9944
Email registration@geolsoc.org.uk

More information about The Geological Society is available at:
www.geolsoc.org.uk/shelllondonlectures11

Okinawan Music at the Japan Matsuri

We did it again! The London Sanshinkai did a half hour's performance this past Sunday at the 2011 Japan Matsuri (Festival), singing slow and fast songs and then dancing the Okinawan bon dance, Eisa. Great fun. The stuff is already up on Youtube.

Let's start with the fast dance, Toshindoi

Penguin outside the London Aquarium in
kimono for the Japan Matsuri!

Then to a slow dance and song, Asadoya Yunta

And end with a slow song teaching morals to children, Tinsagu no Hana

Unlike the past two years of Japan Matsuri held at Spitlefields Market, this one took place around the outside of the London County Hall, next to the London Eye. Lots of stalls offering food and trinkets; two outdoor stages for music performances and one for martial arts. Good that it didn't rain!

Don't know where next year's festival will be held yet but probably at the same time of year – maybe conflicting again with London Open House Weekend (previous blog)...Keep in touch with the Japan Matsuri website.

British Museum gallery talks

The British Museum has an excellent programme of free lunchtime gallery talks (1.15-1.45) and other free lectures, often given by curators at the museum itself or by outside specialists. I attended one gallery talk recently on Chinese glazes by Nigel Wood, an expert on Chinese ceramic technology. It was excellent, covering both the changing pottery styles through Chinese history and the chemistry of the glazes in a nutshell. Instead of looking at slides in a lecture hall, these talks take place in the museum galleries themselves, and the lecturer moves among the cases talking about items therein. This is a most informative way to study when in a small group; and if the group is large, there are earphone amplifiers so that one can hear what's being said in the middle of the crowd. Regular visitors to the galleries drift in and out on the sidelines without being disruptive. But do make sure you know where the gallery is to get there on time because it is a spatially complicated museum! No need to book, just show up...

Yesterday I attended a talk in the Korea Foundation Gallery at the BM (sorry, that's what it's called here), where a guest curator from the Seoul National Museum was scheduled to talk about the new Korean materials there on loan from SNM or bought with funds donated by the Hahn Cultural Foundation. To my chagrin, however, the talk was given in Korean! There were only two people in attendance, myself and a Korean intern at the museum. My Korean isn't that good, and I only understood a little of what was said, but I thought, What a shame that the lecture wasn't in English to appeal to the more adventurous British and tourist public. Wouldn't the Korea Foundation want their gallery widely known? The gallery is well worth visiting, currently having Silla stoneware, and gold and beads from the Kyongju tombs in one case and Kaya iron armour for both men and horse in another. These are on short-term loan from SNM and will eventually be returned to Korea. The permanent exhibit contains ceramics of several ages including celedons, porcelains and punchong ware. Inlaid lacquer and metal works as well as an iron Buddha are also on display.

To see more about the Korea Gallery and Hahn Cultural Foundation:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/galleries/asia/room_67_korea.aspx
http://www.hjmuseum.com/eng_group/intro/founder.asp

Check out future activities and events at the British Museum at:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/events_calendar.aspx