Boog's Blog

Monday. Train to Marseille.

Nothing especially interesting. Eurostar to Nord, then Rer to Lyon gare. The server on Eurostar liked the Gazpacho so we gave her a glass during meal service.

Below is QB packing in the morning.

Tuesday. Walking all day, touristing.

North African market, old Port and more. Nine miles.

Wonderful diversity of people. North Africans, Arabs, Euros. Few Asians.

More of this interesting area.

Vieux Port with basilica which is on Thursday’s schedule.

Interesting cathedral de la major. Closed.

Old City

Charite, used to house 1000 homeless before it became a museum area. Wonderful stonework.

Royal bouillabaisse. Before and after.

Saturday

First, more on my Supreme Court thread. Might be time for local executive (executive branch) to generally ignore the Court rulings unless the Federal Executive sends in troops, physical or other strong enforcement. As regular readers know I believe that the Court was never intended (Hamilton, 19th century historical view that the House was the predominant political and democratic body with its two year turn over) to be so powerful. Now that the Court is just another political body it should be treated as such, one of three as part of the checks and balances.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Mostly chores during the day, getting ready for Monday’s departure.

Dinner with Rachael at Noize. High end French restaurant in Fitzrovia. Good but not excellent. Fantastic bread, a few very good dishes but some just ok. Far better quality and service at Brasserie 108 where we could not find fault with any dish or service. I even called over to speak to the manager to tell her.

S

Sunday, “tea,” Taiwan style at Xu Teahouse. Our third visit to Xu this trip.

Four types of tea.

Hong yu,yellow,cold, sparkling. Notes of apricot.

Assam oriental beauty and strawberry. With ice cube.

Yeh fang,oolong, very mild.

Cooked Pu’er, post fermented. Good for digestion.

And pizza Chez Bobby

Thursday – a planned rest day.

Not so much, more wandering. Covent gardens area after a breakfast at Gails.

QB acquires a treat

A wedge of the bread. You might not have guessed.

Equadorian drinking chocolate.

Dinner at an outstanding place. Everything we had was excellent.

Brasserie 108. Cod, monkfish, chips, broccoli, negroni,bok choy and other fixings.

Friday, cooler, much but another blazing bright sun.

After Paul’s for breakfast wandered up to the British Library. Noisy, very noisy walk along Marlybond Road with buses and sirens and kiddies…..

The exhibit we wished to see does not start until october so we will have to return there, probably on the 30th.

Instead we saw the treasures of the BL. Wonderful exhibit, Magna Carta, illustrated manuscripts from many sacred texts (all major religions), historical documents (such as the letter from Victoria to Gladstone where she says she agrees with him and is also against women rights).

The cafe area where many go to read, except now instead of books piled high on carousels it is nothing but computers with their included materials. Quite a change.

Asked the staff if I could get a copy of the Treasures exhibit. “Well, there is an abridged version in the exhibit shop, too much stuff for a book”. So, I ask, what about a digital version, lots of room there for items and pictures etc. “Good idea but has not been discussed”.

Dinner with Bobby, now sufficiently recovered.

Wednesday. Getting warmer.

First some musings on the Court. As readers are likely to know the Court was not always powerful. Many decisions were decided (think Andrew Jackson let them enforce it), ignored (think segregation) etc. The Court gained most of it current strength when Eisenhower inforced via troops to Little Rock.

While the Court has always been political we have reached a stage where it currently is nothing but another political branch. A review of current 5-4 decisions shows clearly a fully partisan, Red vs. Blue Court.

Why and should be a simple 5-4 decision be dispositive for the whole country?

During Earl Warren’s time busing came to the court many times. He insisted, and achieved, 9-0 decisions on the logic that the public would not accept a divided Court on such an important issue.

My view and suggestion, one for the publis, and hopefully for local executive juristictions.

5-4 decision: rules for that case only, no precedent as in the Court’s claim in Gore v Bush

6-3 decision: rules for the circuit that the case originated from. Say the 4th circut. Dispositive for just that circuit.

7-2 decision or greater: dispositive for the country.

As to Kavenaugh this discussion about innocent until proven guilty, reasonable doubt, preponderance of the evidence is the wrong way to look at it. It is a JOB interview. Participated in any? Sure, did you view it as a court case or “don’t want person as boss or in the department or in the company”.?

And now back to our regualary scheduled program. Eating, walking, recovering, relaxing.

Regent park stroll on a perfect fall day.

The highlight: a visit to Xu Teahouse. We had lunch there (mentioned in earlier blog posts). This time for dinner with Bobby. Unfortunately Bobby picked up JD’s cold and informed us of the same mid-afternoon. We went without him but with plans to take him there when we return to London end of the month.

Review of our two main dishes as well as an overview.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/28/xu-london-w1-restaurant-review-marina-oloughlin

Smoked eel with tomatoes and daikon

Char sure,imberico collar

Shoul pa chicken

Dumplings of course.

Monday, rain has ceased probably for this trip, at least the London portion.

Breakfast at Paul’s. Basque style eggs and peppers. Yes a lot of food pictures. We mostly walk from one meal to the next.

Italian garden at Bayswater side of Hyde Park.

Now legal in the UK.

Fried wontons, parts, tomatoes.

Tuesday. Rain has ended and warming trend beginning.

A longer walk today, to the Chelsea physic garden, entrance above.

Naturally a fine salad before a treasure hunt around the garden.

We have been there many times. This time there is an exhibit of lettering and are pieces. Each piece hand carved, often with bits of poems. A treasure hunt in the sense of the map provided was not….

From the write up it appears that the exhibit, many focused on botanticals, refers to the book some of us discussed “Drink”.

Wonderful planting of peppers, shapes and colors.

One of the more interesting areas was a display we have not seen in the past. Fabrics made of multiple plants. Even fig. Touching allowed. Maybe 20 our more of these examples.

Dinner. JD stopped by for a cameo.

Sunday, rain for a bit and then, sadly, ending. Weather says “feels like 44 degrees”. This is at noon local time.

Breakfast at Daylesford. Everything was good as usual. However the very good bread with a hard crust could not be cut with a butter knife they serve it with. Spoke with the server. Italian of very good demeanor agreed completely; said this knife will not be sufficient to cut the tea. Apparently has been a long-standing complaint.

For something completely different and quite interesting: from the NYT today sounds. The link has sounds from 11 places, the video takes about 30 minutes. Get a glass of wine or whatever and enjoy. Sounds that most likely you have never heard before from lava flow to jungle lemurs, icelandic …..

Tea at the RA as an excuse to walk and window shop, then a nap before another fine Bobby dinner.

Saturday. An eating and laundry day, as well as visits to libraries. Not the BM.

But…. Rain. Today and supposedly tomorrow. Glorious rain.

First, breakfast a Fisher’s. An Austrian Konditori with outstanding food and service. We have eaten here before as has Bobby. Reservations, even for Brekki.

This is the third Sunday in September. 250 buildings are opened for public viewings.

We started, late, and went first to the Linnaeus society at the Burlington house.

Meeting room with original portrait.

Usual story, Charles II is King, 50 year old married 18 year old beauty and builds her a house. She becomes mistress to Duke of York, dies mysteriously, poison suspected, not proven. Later, many decades later, gets name of Burlington house.

Library of the society. Suspect our librarian readers will not have seen this place.

Cataloguing, as I am sure they would wish to know, is UDC.

Old and new books. Very different security.

Took far too long and far too much effort.

Fabulous handwritten record keeping in copperplate script. 1903. Well after the medieval manuscript scribes passed.

The chemistry library, different and quite interesting building within the complex, was not worth the pixels to capture.

Another fine dinner. Kieran, JD’s brother joined. Visiting from Cork. JD apparently slept through dinner. No one woke him up.

Home made wontons, Chinese chicken wings, Kim chi, doombar beer.

Friday, a Bob free day as we are both otherwise engaged. Missed him last evening as well. He explained that those invited were all A-list.

What we missed:

Rain for a few minutes today. Missed it, we were inside.

Our engagement is with Melanie, Randy’s sister, and Dom, his son and Kate, Dom’s wife.

First a corrective art visit. Dee “did” Tiepolo not Titian. Of to the gallery to collect a proper viewing.

Only two on display at the national. The rest are in storage.

For us, Cannaletto

And our other favorite, Turner.

sigh. So much better in person.

At the Royal academy they are doing an architecture exhibit. In the courtyard a commissioned piece, really a facade as explained. Modeled after Hopper and a scene in Psycho.

Dinner. Melanie, Dom and Kate. Indian as pictured. Very enjoyable company and dinner.

Wednesday

QB still in pain from the sidewalk attack.

Highlight of Wednesday was the outstanding pork dinner.

Breakfast at daylesford, a real farm to table with their own farm, offered some very California drinks as starters. We sampled the nut latte. Not a winner.

Thursday. The Wallace collection.

First a Titian for Dee.

A bit faded as this hung in Wallace’s bathroom, highly steamed. He did not know it was by Titian.

Titian above.

Two Cannalettos below. Our favorites at the Wallace.

Dinner at Daylesford.

Tuesday.

Virginia Waters Lake planned but ,,,,, too long to get there as no easy route. Will go again when we do the North Downs walk sometime in the future.

British museum instead. There is now a long maze as entry to the new outside security building. I asked if there was a trigger for the change. “The world”

An Asian view of Churchill as explained.

Room of items Britain “preserved” from their 18th and 19th century collecting.

QB enjoying Victoria sponge cake with her Ceylon Kenilworth tea.

And then, on our walk back from the museum a sidewalk attacked!!

Face plant but fortunately nothing broken but scraped and quite sure. Expects more soreness on the morrow.

I did not get a picture of the face plant for the obvious reason of discussion of condition. Many Brits stopped, offered assistance, restaurant napkin, Advil.

The waiter from the restaurant said that that spot attacks regularly. Often two a day. Don’t feel bad as this happens often here.

Dinner.

Another outstanding one. Peking duck style with an appetizer of Serrano ham from the bone served on pan con tomate.