Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 August 2008 19:16:06
Kerensa, you are quite right - that is definitely Wong Kei's.
Sunday saw us meeting Tractor Girl, having a nice lunch at the little Italian cafe in Leicester Square. If you haven't been there it is just opposite the Vue cinema and does the best coffee's in town. Their food is also just as good.
Afterwards we went to the Natural History Museum, see Tractor Girl's Wiblog for a summary of her visit with FW. Stroppy and I went to see the dinosaurs and mammels instead of the butterflys. I must say that a Sunday afternoon in August is not the quietest time to visit - the queue is very long and slow. I really hate tourists!!
Afterwards we accompanied TG back to Victoria, said our goodbyes and headed off to Madame Tussards. Remember the toursists? Well this was about 3 times as busy. We decided to give up when we got to the back of the queue.
That night we ate a very uninspiring meal at Bella Italia and then had a night time coffee/hot chocolate at the Italian again and then went back to the hotel.
Monday saw us going to the Imperial War Museum. I hadn't been for about 20 years and SB really wanted to see it. We spent a few hours wandering around the First & Second World War exhibits. FW had had enough by the end of WW1; SB had enough around halfway through WW2. I'd had enough by the end of the D Day exhibit. I was sorry to miss the Conflicts Since 1945 bit and the Holocaust exhibit but definitely intend going again.
After that we decided to beat the rush hour and have a quiet night at the hotel instead.
History Today:
1119: Henry I defeats Louis VI of France at the Battle of Bremule, fending off an attempt to sieze his Norman lands.
1916: Captain Leefe Robinson becomes the first pilot to shoot down a German Zeppelin airship during a raid on London. The Zeppelin crashes at Cuffley in Hertfordshire. He is later awarded a Victoria Cross.
1940: Winston Churchill rallies the nation with his "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" speech - maybe he forgot about the 300 Spartans who saved Greece. But I think he was right.
1944: The Western allies trap two German armies in the Falaise Gap. This brings an end to the battle for Normandy.
1968: The Soviet army brings the "Prague Spring" liberalisation of Czechoslavakia to an end, as 200,000 troops arrive. To draw a parallel with today: this was an election year in the US - as was 1956 in Hungary. See somethings never change.
1989: The pleasure cruiser Marchioness is hit by a dredger, the Bowbelle, on the Thames. 51 people, attending a party on board, are killed.
1998: President Clinton (the male one) launches missiles against terrorist camps in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons factory in Sudan. This was in retaliation for attacks on the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998: 229 people die when a Swissair plane crashes into the Atlantic near Nova Scotia.