Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 June 2004 20:56:02
I had to come up to central London today for a study day. It didn't get off to a great start - 9-5 study day in town means only one thing - rush hour commuting both ways (aargh). However, I decided to walk from Charing Cross as it wasn't too far away (in Birdcage Walk), and as I walked along the Mall and then down Horseguards Parade I found myself thinking - you know, London is such a great city. I hardly ever go up to town these days as I work locally, but looking down the Mall with Buckingham Palace at the far end, with all the Union Jacks and BBC Outside Broadcast people laying wires (is it Trooping the Colour this weekend or something?), I did feel a little burst of pride. I'm no royalist, and if it wasn't for the fact that the alternative would be President Blair I'd happily vote to abolish them, but I did look at that view and think, actually this is such a cool city.
At lunchtime I wandered round the lake in St James' Park with my colleague, which was lovely - I'd not seen her for a while (she was my practice teacher when I was training), and St James' is my favourite of the central London royal parks. We had a little chat with one of the gardeners who was planting some stuff out - the flower beds look wonderful - one day my garden will look like that (though probably not till after I've moved out and someone's moved in who knows what they're doing).
Also at the study day was another woman I trained with, I'd not seen her since we qualified so it was great to catch up. She's doing a part-time PhD, so we shared application and study horror stories, and she knows someone who is going to work in Romania in health for a few months on secondment, so another potential useful contact emerges from the woodwork. I don't know what I'm going to do with all these people if I don't get accepted!
I was hoping whilst I was up in town to kill two birds with one stone and bring you June's cultural activity (regular readers will know that I've resolved in the time I have left in London to do at least one cultural activity a month, as there's so much in London that I've still not done despite having lived here for donkey's years). I popped into the National Portrait Gallery as it was more or less on the way back to the station, I'd been there quite recently so didn't particularly want to see their regular collection again just yet, but I thought I'd check out the temporary exhibitions. However, none of them particularly grabbed me so instead I wandered over the road and into the crypt at St Martins-in-the-Fields, as they have a little gallery there too. Unfortunately the gallery was empty apart from a few brass rubbing tourists, so foiled again I came home and will have to try again in a couple of weeks somewhere.
I voted today - it's the elections for the European Parliament, London Assembly and London Mayor. I'm not expecting my protest votes to achieve anything much - I live in quite a lively council ward so the protest vote candidates very often get voted in in the local elections, but on a city-wide and national level I don't think it's going to happen. I did consider, after reading over someone's shoulder on the train that Livingstone and Norris were neck-and-neck in the mayoral opinion polls, that maybe I should vote tactically and give Ken my 2nd vote, but I couldn't bring myself to, I just find him so smug and irritating and arrogant. If Norris gets in though I'll regret that.
Huh. Like my one vote will make any difference. I vote because after seeing the queues of voters in South Africa in the first election after apartheid fell, and thinking about people who were jailed and worse for my right to vote, I can't bring myself not to vote. Every election I find it harder though.