London: Houses of Parliament
On the train down a load of old folks get on the train. One of them is reading a book called “A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects”, which sounds like the quintessential old person book.
The train rolls into Kings Cross eventually and we disembark and wander down into the Underground. Whenever I come to London I marvel at how quickly I readopt the language of city living. We dive into the bowels of the city and board the Victoria Line to Oxford Circus.
Back on the streets we weave through polyglot crowds towards Buckingham Palace. The palace is demure and the crowds outside are restless and wandering. We cross the street and snap a couple of pics of the Victoria Monument and then head down a treelined road past the Kings Guard Museum towards Westminster.
In Westminster we find a row of three red-painted English phone boxes, at each of which is a queue some 50 people long waiting to take pictures with the phone box. I guess these phone boxes must be the most optimally-placed for tourist photography because the Elizabeth Tower of the Houses of Parliament is sort of in the background. I've always thought the most British phone boxes are the old BT cornet-labelled ones standing solitary at the foot of Cross Fell filled with forgotten books. But: NOT BRITISH ENUF. At one phone box, a 14-year-old tries on a series of modelesque facial expressions, shifting hipshot from one side to the other. At the next, a Buddhist in burgundy robes and sandals stands stockstill with the door of the phone box half-open, as if he's Buddhist Clark Kent or something.
We wind through crowds past Westminster Hall and spot the visitors' entrance to the Houses of Parliament. There is no queue, no fanfare. No one seems to have noticed. I wander through the fences towards one of the security personnel. Behind them stands a man with an automatic rifle braced against his hip. I half expect him to raise his NATO-issue bullpup and start yelling at me. He doesn't.
I ask the security guy whether there are any more tours of the House of Commons on today. He says no, but they’re currently debating and we can go in and watch if we want. Perks of being British. I duly shrug off my backpack for a security check and then we’re in the medieval Westmister Hall under the centuries-old roofs and standing on the spot where Charles I was marked for execution.
I feel very much as if we’ve discovered a secret shortcut into the heart of British politics.
Up past St. Stephen’s Porch and into St. Stephen’s Hall, where linger school groups on excursion and, at intervals, women standing with extraordinarily well-behaved dogs. (These dogs, as it turns out, have all won awards for one thing or another; non-award-winning dogs are not allowed in the Houses of Parliament.)
We wait ten or fifteen minutes and then are ushered through the Central Hall (featuring: a Post Office!) into a series of corridors and up flights of stairs to the mezzanine supporting the public viewing area for the House of Commons. We render our bags unto a surprisingly sassy man in a morning suit and suddenly we’re in the House of Commons, looking down through a pane of plexiglas at a couple dozen Members of Parliament debating compensation for Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) women.
My brief comments on the debate: the Tories presented better rhetorically, but I struggle to find sympathy for the economic cause of a group of 70-year-old women who benefitted directly from one of the strongest periods of economic growth in the history of Britain, and whose main complaint is that they couldn’t be bothered to read their own mail.
This opinion, I suspect, wouldn't go over well with the half dozen WASPI women sitting two rows above us, who cry, "Hear hear!" when the Tories speak, and who cry "Shame shame!" when Labour speaks.
A little ways down from the WASPI women, a couple of teenagers snap their fingers (i.e. like "oh snap" from circa 2006) when Torsten Bell says something spicy. The sassy man in the morning suit comes down out of nowhere and scolds them: "Stop doing that with your arm." The teenagers leave a couple of minutes later.
From Parliament we wander down past Downing Street, where I'm disappointed to discover that Number 10 isn’t even visible from Whitehall Road. Then on to Charing Cross station and back into the depths of the earth for a ride up to Islington to check in to our lodging.
Refreshed, we strike back out towards Pentonville (of the famous HMP) for dinner at Little Georgia on Barnsbury Road. What a fantastic little spot! I get a chkmeruli and Sam gets a bean stew; a bit of cake and a glass of dessert wine finish us off.
We walk slowly back to the hotel via the Uniqlo and the Regent’s Canal and pass out at like 8:30 pm.
